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Use of Simulation in Medical Education
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| Click above to take a tour! Photo courtesy of B-Line Medical and is meant to represent general purposes of the rooms. |
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In the same way flight simulators make real-life decisions easier for pilots and astronauts, mannequins, who look and act like real patients, will one day enhance the real-world skills of all medical learners at WVU. Take a look!
Similar to other excellent medical schools that use simulation, the new WVU HSC Simulation Center will improve the learning environment, save time, reduce the cost of training, and improve patient care. Using a technology first developed by the U.S. military, WVU’s proposed state-of-the-art center, as yet unnamed, will operate in the heart of WVU Health Sciences clinical campus, providing additional opportunities for business and regional economic development. Take a tour of the proposed Simulation Center.
Highlights of the WVU HSC Clinical Simulation Center include:
- Videotaped training sessions that can be selectively “bookmarked” for one-on-one, student-faculty debriefings.
- More efficient use of faculty time, providing a way for students and residents to task train or re-train any time or as often as they like.
- Web-based simulation technology, much of it portable, will allow WVU, one of only 11 U.S. land grant universities, to offer comprehensive health sciences education, sharing the benefits of high-tech training with rural parts of WV or anywhere it’s needed.
- Interdisciplinary teaching sessions will mean WVU student-physicians can train along side WVU student nurses and pharmacists, emulating the real world, integrated health care teams of today.
- Creation of innovative health science curriculum and instructional delivery will advance WVU’s reputation for excellence.
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| First Graduating Class, June 1962 - Front row, seated: David L. White, Kenneta J. Shaffer, Dean Clark K. Sleeth, Joseph B. Reed, George H. Nelson. Back row, standing: Frederick M. Cooley, Charles W. Lewis, Joseph Ruggiero, Basil D. Cutlip Jr, Jesse S. Griffith, Richard B. Arnold, Ira L. Hemmings Jr, Charles Ladwig Jr, Louis W. Groves, Halbert E. Ashworth, Francis A. Goad |
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When Joe Reed (SoM ’62) was a medical student at WVU, Dean Sleeth brought one or two of his personal patients to class. “We examined their cardiovascular or pulmonary systems,” he said, “then he talked about doing general assessments. Occasionally we read the book. He was one of our favorite people.”
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Standardized patients like the one above only “act” sick. Teaching faculty at WVU today use them for instruction and assessment. High-tech simulation equipment will give students additional practice improving diagnostic skills in a safe and supportive environment. |
For the past forty-one years Dr. Reed has been taking care of his own patients, bringing new ones into the world whose mothers were his patients, too. Hands-on experience and faculty feedback remain integral to medical education at West Virginia University. One day – with your help - new simulation technology will be integrated into the WVU Medical School’s teaching mission, complementing the excellence for which medical education at WVU has always been known.
Once it’s complete, the Center will showcase mannequin “patients” capable of more than 72,000 human reactions - everything from trembling and sweating, to bleeding or giving birth. The curriculum will be innovative, too: Computer-based systems for improving intubation skills, simulated OR suites, virtual humans who mimic cardiac distress, and technology that complements important Standardized Patient scenarios. The WVU HSC Simulation Center – with your help - will help all clinical learners and the patients they one day will care for. For more information contact us at (304) 293-3980 or toll free at (877) 766-4438.
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