Simulation Center trains medical students, professionals alike

Simulating emergency and routine situations teaches without endangering.

By Kyle Brynsvold

Published June 3, 2009

Paramedics surrounded a man trapped under a beam at the site of a fallen building, attempting to calm him down while administering medical care to help ease his pain. Sounds of other rescue workers and a helicopter overhead drowned out the cries for help from the people trapped below the rubble.

In reality, the man is a $40,000 mannequin, the beam is an office desk and the fallen building is a small room in the MU Clinical Simulation Center.

These paramedics were simulating a response to the site of a collapsed building, one of the many uses of the simulation center. This situation is a typical setup meant to train both medical students and local paramedics in dealing with emergency room and rescue situations.

May marked the one-year anniversary of the simulation center's opening. Since its opening, Clinical Simulation Center Medical Director Nicole Fearing said the simulation center has provided the university with more uses than originally planned.

"The simulation center isn't just for hands on training," Fearing said. "It's also to practice handling emotional situations, like breaking the news of a death to a family."

Fearing said the simulation center is doing its originally planned job. Medical and nursing students use the center to simulate situations that would otherwise be dangerous outside of the controlled environment at the university.

"The goal of the simulation center is to get people prepared without hurting anyone," Emergency Services Assistant Manager Andrew Spain said. "You want to make it as realistic as possible."

Clinical Program Coordinator Jennifer Doty said she sees the value of the simulation center for medical students.

"Every time you do something, you do it better the next time," Doty said. "This facility is used to teach hands on work without risking any lives."

The center, which is located on the sixth floor of the Clinical Support and Education Building, is divided into three areas.

The standardized patient area is comprised of eight small doctors' offices, each equipped with the items you would find in any normal doctor's office and an acting patient. Medical and nursing students can use this area to practice giving basic medical care to patients and documenting all of their work on a patient's medical chart. Cameras monitor each room, and can be accessed at any time in a control room located across the hall, or even in a staff member's office, in order to track students' progress.

In the task trainer portion of the simulation center, medical and nursing students, as well as paramedics and other professionals trained to deal with emergencies, can simulate real-life emergency room and rescue situations without the risk of practicing elsewhere. There is also an area in the task trainer portion of the center that is used to train medical students on how to use various surgical instruments. Adjacent to the task trainer section is the multipurpose room, where students can simulate emergency room situations.

Medical student Rachel Rodriguez said the simulation center gives students like her invaluable practice before actually going into the medical field.

"The simulation center gives me the chance to have hands-on practice and to have a feel for the instruments," Rodriguez said. "For me, as a student who wants to go into surgery, this is really valuable experience."