Simulating care: technology-mediated learning in twenty-first century nursing education

The increased reliance on simulation classrooms has proven successful in learning skills. Questions persist concerning the ability of technology-driven robotic devices to form and cultivate caring behaviors, or sufficiently develop interactive nurse-client communication necessary in the context of nursing.

This article examines the disconnects created by use of simulation technology in nursing education, raising the question: "Can learning of caring-as-being, be facilitated in simulation classrooms?"

We propose that unless time is spent with human beings in the earliest stages of nursing education, transpersonal caring relationships do not have space to develop. Learning, crafting, and maturation of caring behaviors threatens to become a serendipitous event or is no longer perceived as an essential characteristic of nursing.

Technology does not negate caring-the isolation it fosters makes transpersonal caring all the more important. We are called to create a new paradigm for nursing education that merges Nightingale's vision with technology's promise.