A little over a month ago, with the support of RWC Allied Health Department Chair Tracy Herrmann, Associate Dean Don O’ Meara, and Assistant Dean Gene Kramer, the Department of Allied Heath purchased a SimMan from Laerdal Medical Company, a replacement for the old manikin that students training to be paramedics or EMTs used to use. According to Professor Herrmann, while conducting a research project at Ohio State University, RWC professors used the SimMan in their work and saw the value in it, realizing that it was something they needed for their program here at RWC.
There are only three SimMen in the area, not including the adult, infant, and child that Children’s Hospital has, which were made by a different company, but are quite similar to the SimMan.
The SimMan is a simulated manikin with a lot of features of a real patient the students might come in contact with, features that the old manikins didn’t have, such as the ability to breathe, produce lung sounds, and talk. Students can shock it, take its pulse and blood pressure, give it IVs, and also use breathing equipment on it, according to Tony Kramer, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine.
All these reactions are monitored on the computer the SimMan is hooked up to.
For example, if a student gives the SimMan an IV of a certain type of medicine, the instructor, knowing what the possible reactions are, reproduces that reaction with the controls on the computer. With the old manikins, the instructor could only tell the student what the reaction would be.
The new technology is valued because the SimMan makes it possible to train students in real time, rather than “make believing” the outcome after practicing a procedure, as they had to do with the old outdated manikins.
“This is as close to reality as you are going to get without actually having a live patient there,” said Professor Kramer.
Students have been commenting on how much they like the SimMan, and how it has helped them understand what they are being trained to do. Adorned in a University of Cincinnati blanket, the SimMan looks right at home in his new classroom.