Nurses spend their lives helping other peoplerecover from injuries and illnesses.Yet nurses suffer a surprising number of injuriesand illnesses themselves because of their work.In fact, the United States Department of Labor saysnursing is the second leading professionfor on-the-job injuries.It ranks higher than construction work and law enforcement.Only freight and stock movers report higher injury rates.Nurses and other health care workersdo a lot of heavy lifting on the job.Lifting and moving patients improperlyleads to sprains, strains and muscle tears-- leading causes of injuries to nurses.Gretchen Gregory is an instructorat the Sinclair School of Nursingon the Columbia campus of the University of Missouri.She says back problems are the greatest threatthat nurses face when they lift or move patients.GRETCHEN GREGORY: "You're talking about peoplethat have handicaps or limited mobility,that need much assistance.And we have untrained people to do that assistingand that puts them at risk for hurting their backs."Ms. Gregory leads a new training roomwhere nurses can learn to keep themselvesand their patients safe.She says most nurses lack training in how to lift patients.GRETCHEN GREGORY: "That's not something that we teach in school,but that's when falls happen and that's when nurses get hurt."She says the safe practices room has special equipment,including a life-size mannequin doll.This "patient" can be made to weigh as muchas one hundred fifty-nine kilograms.GRETCHEN GREGORY: "We have a mannequinthat we can fill up with waterand he becomes a three-hundred-and-fifty-pound mannequinthat they have to learn to use this transfer equipmentto get patients in and out of bed orfrom another bed to a stretcher."Ms. Gregory says most American hospitalshave lifting equipment to help nurses move patients.But she says the equipment is often pushed backin a corner somewhere -- unused and forgotten.She says the safe practices room teachesthe importance of using the tools and skills available.GRETCHEN GREGORY: "Teaching students to take the extra timeto use those and learning how to use them welland efficiently is going to be a keyto helping prevent back injuries."The training room also seeks to improve communication skillsand other practices in a setting designedto copy a busy hospital or clinic.GRETCHEN GREGORY: "If we provide an environmentwhere everything's nice and quietand they can give their medicationsor they can communicate to a physicianwhen there's nothing going on,that's not really a real-life setting.They have to be able to do it with some distraction."An unidentified donor gave three hundred thousand dollarsto build the new room.The University of Missouri describes itas one of the first of its kindat a nursing school in the United States.Pictures are at 51voa.com.And that's the VOA Special English Technology Report,written by June Simms.