Feb 15, 2016
Simulation is one of the most important advances in healthcare
education and skills training of our generation. We now have
simulation mannequins that can blink, breath, or even give birth
thus allowing us to practice scenarios and skills before we
encounter them in real patients. However, these sim dummies are not
real people and so it is all too easy to dehumanize the scenario.
According to Dr Phil Hyde, Director of Children’s Major Trauma and
Southampton Children’s Hospital, it is this lack of emotional
attachment that makes pure sim inadequate for training health care
professionals in the management of trauma – especially trauma in
children.
In his talk from SMACC Chicago, Dr Phil Hyde illustrates why he and
his colleagues have developed an educational program that takes sim
to the next level. The key difference in this sim program is the
incorporation of volunteer children to play the roles of injured
paediatric patients. Another key aspect of this program are the
incorporation of multidisciplinary teams including undergraduate
students for all scenarios.
The benefits of such a program have been far reaching. For the
health professionals involved, it humanizes the scenario and
induces an emotional attachment to the training exercise which adds
an essential component to the training. Furthermore, it teaches
professionals from different fields (nursing, medicine, allied
health etc) to work together in these scenarios as would normally
occur in real life. For the children involved, it is a safe
controlled environment where they can learn about the health
professionals and the health system, they learn about primary
prevention and they can provide feedback to staff from a different
vantage point. The community benefits through the improved primary
prevention which is the most important aspect of treating trauma, a
“man made disease”.
This is a simple, yet powerful program that has so many benefits
beyond the training of doctors and nurses to manage children
involved in trauma. This is an intriguing, innovative talk that
everyone can take something away from.
Southampton Children’s Hospital is part of the University Hospital
Southampton NHS Foundation trust. It is one of the largest teaching
trusts in the UK. All of the simulation programs developed by Dr
Phil Hyde and his colleagues at Southampton are open access and
available for all health professionals to incorporate into their
practice.