Dr. Jill McElheny drew an audience of curious onlookers as she explained how nursing students would be expected to meet the “needs” of the “patients” lying in the hospital beds located on the second floor of CIU’s Jones Center

“You can put tubes in them. You can catheterize. You can do tracheostomies on them,” explained McElheny, a nurse with 27 years of experience who is organizing prospective nursing programs for CIU — programs that will be designed to open up a world of ministry.   

Of course, the patients were not real. They are manikins in the nursing Skills Center, and those looking on were a part of the dedication of the Skills Center and the Simulation Room where nursing students can experience real life patient care scenarios.

Before the tour of the facilities, McElheny explained to dozens of CIU alumni and friends at a reception, that the prospective nursing programs will have a missions emphasis.

“We will incorporate intercultural scenarios with our manikins,” McElheny said. “For example, we may simulate a woman having a baby in another culture, and how we would adapt to care for people in that culture. In addition to the modern equipment in our skills and simulation centers, we plan to set up the limited equipment that may be available to us in developing countries to prepare our students for the mission field.”

CIU Chaplaincy and Counseling students will also be a part of simulation to practice their disciplines.

Among those who have been advising and encouraging McElheny is Columbia physician Dr. Richard McCain who says the proposed nursing programs are a perfect fit for CIU’s mission. He compared health care providers to a three-legged stool, saying they should be capable, compassionate, and Christ-centered.

“Without Christ-centered, the stool is not stable,” McCain said after the tour of the facilities. “That is missing in so many of our training programs. I hope this program will be a light in higher education for Christ.”

For more information on the proposed nursing programs, see “Director of Proposed Nursing Program has ‘Sacred Calling.’”

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