Getting Hands-On: Skills Labs in Nursing School

Marquette’s Direct Entry MSN program combined online learning with hands-on experience, including skills labs. What are skills labs? Skills labs in nursing school is when you put your online learning into practice in a safe environment, so you can be prepared for clinical rotations.

“I didn’t have any hands-on experience as a nursing student before,” says Shelby, a Marquette Direct Entry MSN student near Kenosha, Wisconsin. “Skills lab you go in and professors demonstrate things one on one and practice a few times. Then you can check out for that skill and the professor will approve or deny. If you don’t pass the skill, you have to re-do it until you get sufficient at it.”

The skills labs in nursing school practice is done on high-fidelity manikins, which are patient simulators that allow students to gain realistic experience on many levels, without putting a real patient at risk.

“Hands-on experience in skills labs helps you take the nerves off and allows you to make mistakes in a safe learning environment,” says Courtney, a student at Marquette’s Direct Entry MSN program. “You go from learning how to wash your hands, how to palpate someone's pulse, how to listen to breathing sounds using stethoscope, inserting a catheter, and starting an IV.”

Skills labs in nursing school are led by certified instructors who help students apply what they learned online into the care for the manikins.

“Your nursing instructor is there to show you the difference between medical diagnosis and nursing diagnosis, which I didn’t know there was a difference until skills lab,” says Kassie, a student in Marquette’s Direct Entry MSN program.


If you want to learn more about skills labs in nursing school and what kind of hands-on experience you can receive as a Marquette University Direct Entry MSN student, visit https://mastersnursing.marquette.edu/....