The University of Guam celebrated the opening of the Margaret Perez Hattori-Uchima School of Health Nursing Hub on Wednesday. It's a day that staff and nursing students welcomed.
Chanele Nicole Herrera, a student nurse ready to begin her junior year with the School of Health, called it a privilege to be the first cohort to use the facility.
"We're definitely the cohort that is really, really lucky, to be experiencing this new equipment, because we did have prior experience with our old equipment as well. ... I am a rising junior. So, all the things that I did in like my fundamental's classes, I was only doing fundamental level tasks. But now I'm sure that my learning might be a little bit more challenging and it's really nice that I have these new resources to complement my learning," Herrera said.
The new facility features a laboratory with a Patient Care Area stocked with hospital beds, Axia functional training headwalls, vital signs monitors, bedside lockers, Nursing Anne Simulator, deluxe crisis manikin, wound care simulator, IV injection arm trainer and a SimX Virtual Reality Simulator, to name a few.
The university highlighted that the VR program will allow its students to "enter realistic healthcare environments to include labor and delivery suites."
"For a number of years, our students' clinical exposure to maternal labor and delivery has been limited to GMHA, the only civilian hospital with this capacity," Yvette Paulino, dean of the Margaret Perez Hattori-Uchima School of Health, said. "Our Nursing Hub will supplement our students' clinical exposure through labor and delivery simulation and VR technology."
Before the new facility, Herrera had to "make do" and use her "imagination."
"For instance, when I had to do bedmaking with my friends, like the beds weren't working. It was really old, but we had to make do. And for instance, when we had to learn like suctioning, the ... in our facility, it wasn't working, but now these are all brand new and it is working. So instead of just having to, you know, try and make do with my imagination, I think this new facility can really help further my education and help me with new resources that will benefit my learning," Herrera said.
Explaining how the new facility and equipment would benefit her studies, Herrera recalled telling her instructor that she had difficulty understanding the why behind how things were done in theory.
"Until I started doing my clinical rotations, or even at LRC, the learning resource center. And I started to realize, oh, this is why, we have to speak to our patients kindly. This is why we make the bed the way that it needs to, you know, be made. Because oftentimes patients don't even want to be at the hospital. So, we need to treat every room as if it were their own and deliver patient-centered care. So, I feel like when you're in a training room, you can really, you know, it's not just the mannequin, it is a patient, and that's also why we have to wear our scrubs. It really puts you into the mindset of what it's like to be an actual nurse," she said.
Jennifer Salas, UOG learning resource coordinator with the School of Health, called the new laboratory a "safe place" for students to learn.
"And to help them thrive and be successful, you need to provide that space for them to make mistakes, to practice before we get them out on the view and taking care of our loved ones," Salas said.
The $9 million Margaret Perez Hattori-Uchima School of Health Nursing Hub represents the university's "most significant" investment in healthcare education and workforce development. The university said it will "double" the capacity of nursing student admissions starting in 2027.
"The opening of the Nursing Hub represents much more than a new facility; it reflects the University of Guam's enduring commitment to investing in people who will be a part of building our future," Anita Borja Enriquez, UOG president, said. "As we embrace Tulos Mo'na — propelling forward together — we continue expanding opportunities for students to thrive in an ever-evolving healthcare landscape. The innovative Nursing Hub prepares future nurses with the skills, experience and confidence to deliver compassionate, high-quality care."
