Several faculty members at Wallace Community College Selma felt like students again Friday, as they went through simulation training to learn how to use the college’s four new advanced life simulators.

Health Care Simulations of South Carolina was on campus Friday to teach members of the nursing faculty how to use the new technology, which is capable of taking students through a myriad of scenarios that will challenge them.

“The faculty is starting the training process that will allow us to create realistic clinical scenarios in a classroom training setting, which will help the students increase their knowledge of critical thinking and create real life type situations without the threat of hurting the patient,” said Veronica Brown, who serves as WCCS’ Better Occupation Outcomes with Simulation Training program director.

The four ALS simulators and four SimPads were bought with a $3.25 million grant through the Department of Labor’s BOOST program. BOOST, which is named after the grant, is a new program of study at WCCS that allows students an opportunity to earn medical degrees in electrocardiography, nursing assistant and phlebotomy.

The simulators are so advanced that instructors can set them up to manually run through scenarios or can let students work through a pre-installed program.

Students will have to treat the manikins with the same respect they treat a real patient, because the program recognizes any steps they miss, which automatically deducts points from their grade on each assignment.

“If the students needs to give a medication to lower blood pressure and they give the wrong medication, the blood pressure is going up,” Brown said. “If they give the correct medication, the blood pressure is coming down. The scenario will automatically adjust to what the student should do.”

Dr. Tracy Shannon, a nursing instructor at WCCS, said she loves that the simulators allow the students hands-on experience.

Brown said WCCS is still accepting applicants for the school’s BOOST program, with a deadline of Aug. 1.