Off The Cuff: Michele Carroll

Sept. 6, 2019

Our CCRI faculty and staff are a diverse group with many fascinating hobbies and interests that keep them busy during their free time off campus. Welcome to Off the Cuff. Every other week, we'll profile a member of our CCRI family to find out what makes them tick. Hopefully, their stories inspire others and help us develop new connections and friendships with our CCRI colleagues.

Chances are if you’ve visited our state-of-the-art Health Sciences Clinical Simulation Laboratory at the Flanagan Campus you’ve seen – or heard – one of the several patient simulators used to help replicate real-life hospital and clinical scenarios for our students.

The simulators are designed to look and act like a real patient, which means they have negative reactions to medication, suffer from asthma attacks, or, in some extreme cases, bark at an unsuspecting nursing student who may be taking a little too long to hook up an IV – all real-world problems that occur daily in the medical field.

Behind every great simulator is an experienced technician steering the ship. Meet Michele Carroll. A graduate of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital School of Nursing and a Registered Nurse for more than three decades, Michele is one of two Simulation Technicians at the Flanagan Campus lab – the eyes, ears and voice of our multifaceted simulators.

Growing up in Worcester, MA, Michele wanted to become an actress and perform on “Saturday Night Live,” but put her Hollywood dreams aside to attend nursing school. Her new role at CCRI allows her to put all that creativity and quick wit to use in a much more impactful environment. With Healthcare Simulation Week coming up, here’s a look at how Michele landed such a unique position at CCRI.

As someone who’s been in the nursing field for so long, why did you transition to becoming a Simulation Technician?

I was actually a tutor in the nursing program at CCRI from 2006 through 2009 through a healthcare grant in addition to working as an adjunct faculty member at the New England Institute of Technology. I loved my time at CCRI and really wanted to get back to teaching nursing students, so when I saw the college advertising for a Simulation Technician after opening its new lab in 2016, I knew this was the perfect position, plus I live two miles from the Flanagan Campus in Lincoln. I was friends with a lot of people who still work here, and they thought I’d be a good fit with all of my nursing experience and knowledge, so after researching it for a bit I decided to give it a try.

Where else have you worked in addition to CCRI?

I have had many interesting jobs as a nurse in my 35 years of nursing. I love being a nurse. I love learning new things and gaining different experiences wherever I worked. I have worked as a Registered Nurse at three hospitals – Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston, Rhode Island Hospital, and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. I lived in Pittsburgh for two years before moving back to Rhode Island in 1988. At Rhode Island Hospital, I worked for 12 years on the respiratory floor taking care of patients with emphysema. I also worked at Oak Hill Health and Rehabilitation Center, managed a family health clinic in Fall River and I taught a CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) program at Crossroads RI for the past six years before coming back to CCRI. Crossroads is the largest homeless services organization in the state, and a lot of the students in that program have had hard lives. The nurse assistant training program was a way out of poverty for most of them. It was a rewarding experience and I had always wanted to get back into education.

As the Simulation Technician, what is your process for controlling the simulators?

Everything is done on the fly, with the exception of some pre-recorded sounds like moaning, screaming, or coughing. We do all the talking, answering questions, complaining – just like real patients! So my voice comes out of the mannequin and I say whatever that type of patient would say based on the medical problem they are experiencing. Chest pain, low blood sugar, seizure, allergic reaction – we follow a loose script and, depending on what the students do, or don’t do, I then have to change what I say.

How has your experience in the field prepared you for this new role?

When you’ve been a nurse this long, there’s nothing someone hasn’t done or said to me! Every day is different. We have scenarios for everything, even for something as routine as our students passing out medication. We’ll have the simulator say, ‘My meds are late! I always take my meds with breakfast!’ We have eight different mannequins, and that includes newborns and pediatric simulators and a neonatal child-birthing simulator. I have been married for 31 years and have three grown children, so I know how to scream or complain that I don’t want to push anymore while giving birth! Everyone from nursing, dental, respiratory therapy and EMT can take advantage of our simulators. If you don’t have real patients, these are the next best thing.

What eventually nudged you toward the nursing field when you were younger?

As a kid, I never wanted to be a nurse. I wanted to be a comedienne or an actress. I came from a very funny family. I was voted ‘Class Clown’ at Burncoat High School in Worcester, but when I told my parents I wanted to go to UMass-Amhert to pursue that, they said, ‘No, you’re going to school to become a hairdresser or a nurse.’ That’s what people did back then. We didn’t have as many choices as kids have today. My mother’s friend was a nurse, so that made sense to me. Thirty-five years later, it’s been great. I can’t blame my parents for pushing me in the right direction.

We would love to hear your story, too! Email us at [email protected] if you’d like to be featured in a future edition of “Off the Cuff” or want to nominate a co-worker.

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