As coordinator of the Nursing Interventions Lab, Arleta deDianous manages lab equipment and supplies, observes students in their competency testing, and assists faculty in implementing training modules.

In her three years at Illinois Wesleyan, she’s found what she most enjoys is working with the students.

“It’s amazing, you see how they grow, from when they first come into the lab as sophomores, learning how to check a pulse or take a blood pressure, to by time they leave their senior year, they’re doing full head-to-toe assessments, taking care of somebody who’s very sick, and ready to function as a nurse, just in that short time.

“I like helping them understand what they’re learning.”

She believes the Self-Learning Modules used by the School of Nursing help students learn to think and problem solve on their own, because they aren’t just copying or repeating what they’ve been shown, but rather working together with peers to complete an assigned task.

DeDianous, who is a pediatric nurse practitioner, says the most challenging aspect of her work in the Nursing Interventions Lab is keeping up with technology.

“It’s advancing so rapidly. We want students to be able to see and practice in the lab with whatever equipment they’re going to be seeing at the clinical sites.”

Equipment in the lab includes a new ventilator, an EKG machine and various IV pumps.

“Whatever IV pump they’re going to be using at their clinical site, we make sure we have it in the lab, so they’re able to practice with those and get real comfortable with them. That way, when they’re in the hospital and it starts beeping they don’t panic, ‘Oh, what do I do what do I do.’ They can stay calm and problem solve, and focus on their patients instead of focusing on the pump.”

The same principle is involved in presenting students with situations using the lab’s Nursing Anne Manikin and SimMan. The sophisticated SimMan is capable of running programmed scenarios for conditions such as congestive heart failure.

“The scenarios are a great way to really get students ready for the hospital setting,” deDianous said. “If there’s a situation we can introduce them to on the manikins, they’ll have less anxiety and be able to learn better with that decreased anxiety level.”