 Representatives from Pikeville Medical Center and Big Sandy Community and Technical College joined Friday for the ribbon cutting of a new facility that will enable the next generation of nurses. Today is extremely important for a lot of different reasons and when you look at health care across the globe and I mean across the globe not just the U.S. there's this huge crisis in the U.S. right now that I don't think everyone really understands the magnitude of what's getting ready to happen and what is actually happening is that we just went through you know a hundred-year event with the pandemic on top of the hundred-year event an average age of an RN is 51 years of age and the retiring at at levels we've never seen before. The problem is is that those are now coming out of the nursing programs is less and fewer than those that are leaving and then when you also couple it with you're losing maybe a 20-year nurse with experience with somebody that's coming brand new then you lose that experience on top of that. With an over 8,000 square foot space to learn students will have the opportunity to enhance their nursing skills in a simulated environment. The unique thing about this space is it's designed to simulate a floor on the hospital so you've got a nursing station in the middle you've got patient rooms around the side and the nurse faculty can set up simulations that are just like what the students would encounter in the hospital with some some man some woman that can moan and groan and do all kinds of other things we won't discuss but you can have that happening simultaneously in multiple rooms so the student nurses learn to manage more than one room they learn how to work together in a team relying on each other to respond relying on their team lead their their lead nurse there's an opportunity to simulate working with doctors and other health care professionals in that complex response to patient needs and that really builds them to enter the workforce. At Pikeville Medical Center we believe that together we can make a difference in the fight against cancer we are proud to have patients who have experienced successful outcomes over many years. As always we believe in the power of faith. Pikeville Medical Center where cancer can be defeated. In 2020 PMC and BS CTC came together to create the space and with the help of a $500,000 Appalachian Regional Commission grant they were able to purchase the furniture and equipment for the facility. You know we have several students who actually work also as externs for Pikeville Medical Center as well as other regional partners and one of the things that students share is they feel like they're really at the hospital. They feel like this space is real life and they really enjoy that it is high-touch it is high-tech and they really feel like they are really in one of the better programs that can really meet the needs of what modern nursing looks like. Lastly we spoke with students about the new space. Before you had to go to Prestonsburg which would be like an hour or longer drive for me probably. You know having this here it's more convenient it's more affordable and it's great education honestly. Like I said everything you got here from the mannequins to the way the room is set up it's just like at the hospital so of course going from here to clinical it really helps us students to see like going from here it's just like having a patient there so with these dummies these mannequins they can actually you know wouldn't give blood shots so it's set up just like it would be at the hospital setting when we go in to give a patient care we actually get to give that here. For Mountain Top News I'm Joel Korjol.