Family Nurse Practitioner students learn practical skills in lab class

KOKOMO, Ind. - If your school supplies include hot dogs, bananas, and chicken breast, you might be a student in Indiana University Kokomo's family nurse practitioner (FNP) program.

Dea Kent, director of the FNP program and assistant professor of nursing, teaches the kind of practical skills a health care provider will perform in her Advanced Office Procedures class, combining professional tools with household items to practice suturing wounds.

"The purpose of this class is not necessarily mastery, but exposure," she said. "Medicine is 'See one, do one, teach one.' Going into the fall semester, they are ready to go to urgent care and do these."

Students began practicing sutures on silicon suture pads, with a variety of types of cuts and wounds they might have to close. A thinner pad mimics more delicate geriatric skin, while a translucent pad allows them to see the sutures on both sides.

They also practice on bananas to simulate tougher skins; hot dogs, which represent geriatric skin; and skin-on chicken breasts or thighs, which have multiple layers to suture like human skin.

Kent said she started using household items as practice tools in summer 2020, when she had to teach online because of the pandemic.

"I wracked my brain trying to think how I was going to teach this. I did it from my kitchen with a document camera," she said. "I made lab kits and students picked them up from my house. Every week, we had something we did that included household items. It doesn't matter what you practice on, as long as you practice. I learned to do sutures on cow's tongue, but they are expensive and hard to find. Every grocery store has chicken."

Cheryl Shively, BSN '18, MSN '21, was among the students in that first online class, and returned this summer to teach the current students suturing techniques. Fellow alumna Brittany Stewart, MSN '22, also taught. Both of them moved among the students, watching techniques and offering tips based on their own experiences as working nurse practitioners.

Shively said she was excited to teach the class because she offers a unique perspective as a program graduate.

"I was in the students' position not that long ago," she said. "Enough time has passed for me to gain practical experience and develop a few tricks of the trade, but not so much time that I have forgotten the challenges, nerves, and amount of learning involved in becoming a nurse practitioner. Alumni can share real-world expertise, practical insight, and encouragement with current students."

Kent appreciates her alumni giving back, adding that many FNP graduates serve as preceptors for current students in clinical placements as well.

"It's nice for students to see someone who did our program and is working," she said. "These nurses know the rigor of the program, and are examples that you can get through it, and it's going to be great."

She appreciated the extra hands to teach suturing, which can be tricky until students have practiced.

"There's a very specific way to do it, but once you have the mechanics of it, you've got it," she said. "Simple suturing is an essential skill."

Other sessions have included techniques for the removal of lipomas, the removal and drainage of abscesses, and diabetic foot exams and wound care.

Kent said the office procedures class is an offering unique to IU Kokomo's FNP program.

"A lot of universities don't offer this to their FNP students," she said. "A lot of people tell me they didn't do this in their program. I say I know, but it would have made it so much easier for them."

Education is KEY at Indiana University Kokomo.