Simulators to pantomime human patient

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CMU students, faculty and Mount Pleasant community health professionals can get an up-close look at high-tech patient simulators from 1 to 4 p.m. Wednesday.

“A patient simulator is a computer-controlled life-size mannequin that is programmed to show the symptoms and responds like a human would,” said Timothy Pletcher, director of research at the Center for Applied Research and Technology. “It’s like a flight simulator for doctors or clinical people.”

It will take place at the Grawn Hall’s Applied Business Studies Complex Room 226.

Scenarios are programmed into the simulator and health professions students and professionals are asked to diagnose and treat the ailment.

“For example, the simulator can be programmed to show symptoms of being stung by a bee,” Pletcher said. “See what they are going to do when the tongue and throat swells up.”

Training on patient simulators is just as helpful as flight simulators are to pilots, he said.

It’s about safety and preparation.

“By using a simulator, you can recognize ailments faster and know how to deal with it,” Pletcher said. “In the medical discipline, it helps fill in that gap when you are learning all the information and before you get to touch a patient. Get the manual skills and put all the pieces of what you have learned in place.”

Before patient simulators were available, students practiced on real patients.

A lot of medical care is performed by teams and patient simulators allows teams to learn to work together and practice before working on an actual patient, Pletcher said.

CMU does not own any patient simulator equipment at present, but the physician assistant program may purchase some in the next few years.

“We are doing a feasibility study on Oct. 19 for first responders,” Pletcher said. “We are trying to see if there are perhaps models that work to make it easier to get people trained faster. This technology will be used for some portions of that class.”

Wednesday, Med-Smart and Laerdal Medical Corp. U.S.A. will run through scenarios with their simulators.

“The program is open to anyone,” Pletcher said. “Health care professionals, first-responders, anyone who might be trained in the future and use something like this and even police and firemen are encouraged to attend. There will probably also be some technology people who are interested.”