UA Capstone College of Nursing faculty, from left, Drs. Susan Gaskins and Marsha Adams, Jill Cunningham, Dr. Ann Kelley and Susan Mitchell demonstrate a procedure on the College's computer-controlled simulator. METI diagram and key features

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – There’s a new face in The University of Alabama Capstone College of Nursing, and despite some of his recurring health issues, faculty expect him to help hone UA nursing students’ clinical skills.

The new guy’s only been on campus a few weeks, and he’s already endured multiple heart attacks, countless collapsed lungs and several severe strokes, but the solid expression on his face seems to indicate it’s all part of a day’s work. He is, after all, a 5-foot 11-inch, computer-controlled simulator, known as METI.

METI’s not your average dummy, however. His eyes blink, his pupils constrict or dilate, depending upon his medical condition at the time, his chest rises and falls with every breath, he displays a blood pressure, has a pulse rate you can feel and, yes, he even urinates.

“We can expose students to a variety of medical problems through the METI experience so that when they get to their clinicals at the hospital, they will be more attuned to meeting the medical needs of the patient,” said Dr. Marsha Adams, associate professor of nursing and director of the undergraduate program in UA’s Capstone College of Nursing.

By next fall, when METI is fully implemented in the UA nursing curriculum, students in nine different courses will benefit from the realism he brings to the teaching experience, said Becky Edwards, director of the facilities, technology and distance education in the College and who, along with Adams, serves as one of the College’s two METI coordinators.

The simulator’s Sarasota, Fla., manufacturer, Medical Education Technologies Inc., or METI, refers to him as an Emergency Care Simulator. His brothers are popping up in hospitals, military facilities – including in Iraq – and medical schools, internationally. While others refer to him as “Stan,” a nickname for standard man, or METI-Man, UA faculty refer to him as “METI,” until a future naming contest among students picks a more lifelike title. Whatever you call him, the manufacturer’s representatives say UA is the first educational institution in the state to have him.

METI’s integrated computer system is designed so that if his health condition changes, corresponding vital signs change accordingly. For example, if a faculty member induces a heart attack in METI, via a click of a laptop mouse, his blood pressure and oxygen level drop and his heart rate responds accordingly.

Edwards motions to a sheet that lists more than 60 drugs. “You can give him all of these medicines, and he will respond as a person normally would,” Edwards says.

And, just as two people may respond differently to identical doses of the same drug, METI can display varied responses. He comes pre-programmed with five different scenarios, so he can “become” for example, a healthy 25-year-old, or a smoking, drinking 62-year-old, with accompanying issues and responses.

The young and healthy METI might quickly recover from a health event or drug introduced by a faculty member while a similar scenario might prove fatal to the sickly 62-year-old.

“We’re not limited to just these scenarios that have been pre-programmed,” Edwards said, “because we can learn to write our own.”