CCTC College of Nursing receives medication carts from McLeod Health

Central Carolina Technical College's College of Nursing and Health Sciences received 11 mobile medication carts from McLeod Health in the form of an in-kind donation.

McLeod Health, one of the clinical locations for CCTC students in the Nursing and Health Sciences programs, was originally going to dispose of the carts from the clinical area. However, a McLeod employee from the IT Department approached a CCTC instructor about a possible donation.

"The employee from IT explained they were getting rid of them and wanted to know if we would be interested," Dean of College of Nursing and Heath Sciences Mary Jo Ardis said. "The faculty said 'yes,' and they were more than willing to donate the carts to us."

With these 11 carts, students at CCTC's Health Sciences Center in downtown Sumter will be able to use them in various labs and classrooms throughout the facility to foster their learning by creating a lab environment that is similar to what would be in a hospital.

"They are in great shape," Ardis said. "We plan to use them in the skills lab and in the patient simulation lab. It's going to facilitate the realistic environment."

Students will be able to use them to give medications to the simulated patients within the patient simulation lab. These simulated patients are life-sized mannikins that will react to procedures just as a real patient would. In addition, it will benefit the program's newest students to help recreate an environment that is as realistic as possible.

"When they learn medication administration, it will help facilitate their learning to actually be able to pull medicine out of the cart and have it right there at the bedside," Ardis said.

Ardis thinks that because of these new carts and the opportunities they will give her students, the new additions from McLeod will elevate the program in the years to come.

"Having these 11 additional carts will provide more opportunities for hands-on experiences," Ardis said.

CCTC is proud of the many relationships the college has established with community partners like McLeod Health. To learn more about the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, contact Mary Jo Ardis at (803) 778-7825 or ardismj@cctcech.edu.