Using Health Sciences Simulation to Prepare Massage Therapy Students for Labor and Delivery Outreach

 by Kathy Mitchell R.N. B.N. Faculty of Nursing, Algonquin College &

Pam Fitch, BA, RMT, Massage Therapy Faculty, Algonquin College

Ottawa’s Algonquin College recently opened a state-of-the-art Health Sciences Simulation Lab that provides learning in a safe structured environment so that students can increase their skills and apply their knowledge before practicing in a clinical setting.  

Students in all Nursing Programs, Respiratory Therapy Programs and other Allied Health Professionals receive training on high definition manikins in a fully equipped hospital environment. In a collaborative and interdisciplinary environment, their learning is facilitated by professors who support the concepts of simulation learning in preparation for clinical practice.   

The Simulation environment has recently been extended to Algonquin’s Massage Therapy Program so that students may learn about the hospital environment; prepare themselves for working with laboring mothers and holding and massaging newborn babies.

Background 

 Over the past seven years, Algonquin students described significant challenges with the “Moms and Babes” Outreach at the Civic Campus of the Ottawa Hospital. The students reported that they felt unprepared for working in a hospital and responding supportively and appropriately to laboring mothers. Holding newborns was also of concern to some of the students because several of them had never held a baby before and were afraid to begin during the outreach with a real infant. A hospital setting is quite different from a private massage therapy practice and some students were overwhelmed by the electronic monitoring devices that they encountered.

Many student massage therapists had never been in a hospital as a patient, let alone work within the parameters of public health care. They reported that they had to chart differently, pay attention to what was happening in each room, seek help when needed, be prepared for all possible outcomes for every birth and to manage their own responses to both the labour and the actual births.

This required considerable attention to detail, comportment, documentation and awareness of what the supervisor or laboring mother indicated was needed. The students also had to learn how to communicate with laboring mothers, their husbands and families, and other health care practitioners such as nurses, midwives and physicians.

How the Training was Delivered 

In order to address some of the historic concerns with this outreach, a number of objectives were identified that could assist the students in integrating theory and clinical practice. Students were given a brief orientation to a typical hospital ward, viewed a video on stages of labor and used simulation infants to practice safe handling and massage of babies. The role of the massage therapist as a member of the interdisciplinary team was also discussed.

The Nursing Professor was able to reflect the clinical reality of doing this work in a hospital, while the Massage Therapy Professor was able to link the theory and practice as taught in the academic component and the Massage Clinical teacher was able to communicate and demonstrate in a safe calm environment.

Students practiced holding, unwrapping and wrapping simulation babies and were able to work at their own level of comfort. It was useful to assess the students’ responses to the simulation babies and to observe their responses to the video on the stages of labor for them to reflect on their own personal feelings about this experience.

The psychomotor skills and manual dexterity shown in lab gave the clinical teacher advance information about which students might need more supervision to be successful in this clinical area. Students were surveyed before the class as to their level of knowledge and confidence and will be followed up after their clinical experience to assess the impact of simulation learning on clinical confidence, critical thinking and psychomotor skills.

Outcomes of Simulation Training 

Once the actual outreach began at the Ottawa Hospital, student therapists reported feeling prepared and comfortable with the hospital environment and they indicated that they felt excited to be a part of the labor and delivery team. The clinical supervisor was able to provide extra support for those students that had been identified as needing more supervision or confidence.

Although there are several massage therapy programs that provide labor and delivery outreach opportunities, it appears that this type of simulation preparation for massage students in a labor and delivery outreach clinic is not the norm in massage therapy instruction. A literature search performed by our Learning Resource Center showed no work had been published in this area of Massage Therapy or Simulation.

Using the Health Sciences Simulation Lab at Algonquin College has significantly improved the level of confidence of Massage Therapy students before beginning their clinical experience in a Mother Baby Unit in an active treatment hospital in Ottawa. Students have asked for more simulation to be incorporated into their training for a variety of circumstances because they appreciate the level of competence and preparedness that they will bring to real, live clients.

Contact Details

Kathy Mitchell can be contacted at: Mitchek@algonquincollege.com

Pam Fitch can be contacted at: fitchp@algonquincollege.com

Mailing Address: Algonquin College, 1385 Woodroffe Ave, Faculty of  Health , Public Safety and Community Studies, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K2G 1V8, Phone 613 727 4723 ex 5389.