What’s it like to be a student at Illinois State University’s Mennonite College of Nursing?
“Being a student here at Mennonite is incredible,” says senior B.S.N. student Spencer Simpson. “Once you graduate, you’ll be confident to provide safe, compassionate care to your patients.”
In our latest episode of #BirdofMouth, Simpson takes you through her Mennonite College of Nursing experience, starting with her time on the Themed Living-Learning Community residence hall floor just for nursing majors. That helped her meet other nursing students and get to know the college’s faculty.
The best part, Simpson said, is Illinois State’s nursing simulation lab, a state-of-the-art learning center where students come to develop the competencies they will use in clinical practice. Among its many features is a Pyxis machine to dispense medication—just like she’d see at a real hospital.
“At the lab, faculty will guide you through a scenario where you have to take care of a patient. They’ll make (the patient simulators) bleed, or make them breathe differently, and you have to figure out what’s going on and how to help them,” Simpson said. “This is a really great way to learn transferrable skills that you can take with you to your clinicals.”
Simpson is also a student leader with the Student Nurses Association.
Learn more about Simpson and the Mennonite College of Nursing in the video above.
Adam Rahn can be reached at amrahn@IllinoisState.edu.
This was a great Bird of Mouth video article. Really glad that I took the time to listen to it and just be more enlightened to what it’s like to be a nursing student at ISU. 🙂 Thanks for the help Spencer, you’re doing a great job as the President of SNA already.