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Simulation Resource Laboratories (SLR) have become a common part of education today, allowing hands-on care in a safe setting, with time for pauses during scenarios and reflection afterwards. In the academic setting, a nurse educator would provide this for a group of nursing students. One of the challenges any educator faces is how to keep up with current practices in the clinical setting while teaching full time. By inviting a direct care nurse to participate in the creation of a scenario, then combining this new scenario with didactic and case presentations, the team teaching becomes greater than the sum of its parts.

One such situation recently developed in this author’s institution was for a high risk pregnancy nursing elective course. One of the topics for class was postpartum hemorrhage (PPH), a subject upon which a local direct care nurse had published. We met to review the course‘s standard PPH scenario, made adjustments based on real women and current standards of practice, then planned a class. First students participated in a simulation for a PPH with a good outcome. The class then continued with a review of the risk factors, medications, and nursing responsibilities during a severe PPH, alternating with case presentations, demonstrating different causes for PPH. We then returned to the simulation lab and ran a second scenario with more complications, including time for debriefing. This allowed for nursing students to fully appreciate and integrate what they had learned and to value their role in more complex situations. 
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It is a crucial part of undergraduate nursing education programs to develop opportunities to teach critical thinking skills. SLRs can meet this challenge by providing unique situations for students to experience emergencies they would otherwise not experience until well after graduation. By integrating simulation lab, academic, and direct care experience, we were able to provide more realistic detail to the existing simulation modules and enhance learning through practical application. Additionally, the students were able to ask questions of a nurse who works “in the trenches.” The nurse educators gain real world views to enhance creation of other scenarios. The direct care nurse gains the added benefits of professional growth, nurturing the next generation of nurses, and experiencing the growing field of simulation as a teaching method. The institution gains graduates with critical thinking skills and knowledge of current practice and policies. The students all responded favorably to this alternative program. This poster will provide a description of our joint program design, benefits, and student responses.