History

The Nursing Skills and Technology Center (NSTC), originally named the Multimedia Center, was established in 1972 by Joél Bishop at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center (LSUHSC) School of Nursing. "We started the center in 1972 with no equipment, no learning guides, only a belief that all students have different learning peaks," Bishop said. While an instructor in the School of Nursing, she visited schools of nursing in Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin to study established centers.

Following her retirement in 1980, Bishop become a Hotel Dieu Hospital volunteer. She was assigned to the Surgery waiting area each Monday morning.

Founded in 1859, Hotel Dieu Hospital was owned and operated by the Daughters of Charity, an order of nuns. Hotel Dieu is French for "House of God" and was the only private hospital in New Orleans that stayed open during the Civil War. It saw New Orleans through two major yellow fever epidemics in 1853 and 1897, was the first hospital in the nation to air-condition its surgical suites in 1913, and was the site of milestone medical research that developed sulfonamide drug treatment for meningitis in the 1940s.

At the end of 1992, the Daughters of Charity sold Hotel Dieu to the state, and it was renamed University Hospital. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, University Hospital was updated and became Interim LSU Hospital (ILH), which served as the primary LSUHSC Hospital until the completion of the new University Medical Center on Tulane Avenue in 2015.

In the 2020s, ILH underwent renovations and opened in the summer of 2023 as the Center for Advanced Learning and Simulation (CALS).  Today, the NSTC is located on the second floor of CALS and encompasses a variety of sophisticated learning aids. High-fidelity simulation rooms and a 20-bed hospital lab allow students to set their own learning pace. The members of the faculty and staff are always present if help is needed.

"We started the center with one basic skill at one level," Bishop said. "Today the center helps students at the associate, baccalaureate and masters levels. It is so rewarding to see how the center has grown and continues to grow."