Great article Gary. You seem to have a good base in the medical field as well.Your years in nursing are showing up here. Simulators are good since they help us experience things without having to be engaged in the cost and risk of working with real objects. I believe that simulators that mimic human beings can never be 100% reliable. My point is that the blood pressure or stress level of an individual can be affected by what he sees, what he is thinking about or what he may have just experienced. Simulators dont have the artificial intelligence to behave like humans in those situations. None the less, your blogg was really informative and enlightening to me.
Lawrence, You have a good point there. The simulators respond to student assessments and interventions within the prorgraming parameters of the scenario. As you point out this does not allow for individual variences in reaction. We can just get as close a proximation to the physiology as we can. Thanks for the comment. Gary
I had heard about these on a reality tv show in which one of the principal people was doing a training for others using these simulators. They are quite impressive and certainly have been an improvement on the "Annie" of the past cpr classes that I remember. I find it amazing what they can simulate. But as Lawrence pointed out, they are only reliable within certain parameters. However, I do agree that they amazing and very useful in the training of medical personnel.
Wendi, Thak you for the comments and observations. The simulators certainly are an interesting technology that has great potential. So far we've had good reviews from the students about using the simulation center to practice assessment skills and to prepare them for their first day in clinical. Using simulatios does require new skills as an educator and some curricular changes as we integrate the simulations into the program. I think it will be an interesting journey for us as a faculty.
Gary - I like this use of technology. Gaining experience and confidence with simulators before practicing with patients seems like a good use of technology.
What kind of curriculum change should occur with this?
Jennie, Thanks for the question. One of the things we needed to do is build the use of simulators into the didactic portion of clinical courses. Some faculty have moved portions of the traditional classroom time to the simulation center. This allows for much more student interaction and exploration of the topics at hand. This has required some changes in where topics are located in the courses, as well as how much time is available. The simulations are very useful tools but do take a bit more time to accommodate student interaction and debriefing.
Also faculty needed to address how student evaluations will be handled. For example, now student self and peer evaluations from the debriefing sessions done after a simulation exercise are included as part of the course. Several of the clinical courses are ever so slowly changing to a more constructivist approach. It will be interesting to see how things look in a few years.
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Great article Gary. You seem to have a good base in the medical field as well.Your years in nursing are showing up here. Simulators are good since they help us experience things without having to be engaged in the cost and risk of working with real objects.
ReplyDeleteI believe that simulators that mimic human beings can never be 100% reliable. My point is that the blood pressure or stress level of an individual can be affected by what he sees, what he is thinking about or what he may have just experienced. Simulators dont have the artificial intelligence to behave like humans in those situations. None the less, your blogg was really informative and enlightening to me.
Lawrence,
ReplyDeleteYou have a good point there. The simulators respond to student assessments and interventions within the prorgraming parameters of the scenario. As you point out this does not allow for individual variences in reaction. We can just get as close a proximation to the physiology as we can. Thanks for the comment.
Gary
Gary-
ReplyDeleteGreat article.
I had heard about these on a reality tv show in which one of the principal people was doing a training for others using these simulators. They are quite impressive and certainly have been an improvement on the "Annie" of the past cpr classes that I remember. I find it amazing what they can simulate. But as Lawrence pointed out, they are only reliable within certain parameters. However, I do agree that they amazing and very useful in the training of medical personnel.
Wendi
Wendi,
ReplyDeleteThak you for the comments and observations. The simulators certainly are an interesting technology that has great potential. So far we've had good reviews from the students about using the simulation center to practice assessment skills and to prepare them for their first day in clinical. Using simulatios does require new skills as an educator and some curricular changes as we integrate the simulations into the program. I think it will be an interesting journey for us as a faculty.
Gary - I like this use of technology. Gaining experience and confidence with simulators before practicing with patients seems like a good use of technology.
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of curriculum change should occur with this?
- Jennie
Jennie,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the question. One of the things we needed to do is build the use of simulators into the didactic portion of clinical courses. Some faculty have moved portions of the traditional classroom time to the simulation center. This allows for much more student interaction and exploration of the topics at hand. This has required some changes in where topics are located in the courses, as well as how much time is available. The simulations are very useful tools but do take a bit more time to accommodate student interaction and debriefing.
Also faculty needed to address how student evaluations will be handled. For example, now student self and peer evaluations from the debriefing sessions done after a simulation exercise are included as part of the course. Several of the clinical courses are ever so slowly changing to a more constructivist approach. It will be interesting to see how things look in a few years.
Gary