Simulating care: technology-mediated learning in twenty-first century nursing education.
OBJECTIVE
The increased reliance on simulation classrooms has proven successful in learning skills. Questions persist concerning the ability of technology-driven robotic devices to form and cultivate caring behaviors, or sufficiently develop interactive nurse-client communication necessary in the context of nursing.


METHODS
This article examines the disconnects created by use of simulation technology in nursing education, raising the question: "Can learning of caring-as-being, be facilitated in simulation classrooms?"


RESULTS
We propose that unless time is spent with human beings in the earliest stages of nursing education, transpersonal caring relationships do not have space to develop. Learning, crafting, and maturation of caring behaviors threatens to become a serendipitous event or is no longer perceived as an essential characteristic of nursing.


CONCLUSIONS
Technology does not negate caring-the isolation it fosters makes transpersonal caring all the more important. We are called to create a new paradigm for nursing education that merges Nightingale's vision with technology's promise.
Oklahoma City University, Kramer School of Nursing, Oklahoma City, OK, USA. ejdiener@okcu.edu
Elizabeth
E
Diener
Nelda
N
Hobbs
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D004506:Education, Nursing / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D018961:Educational Technology; D004645:Empathy; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D015402:Nursing Education Research; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research; D016544:Patient Simulation; D013338:Students, Nursing / Q000523:psychology*