Field Trip Part 2

Check out pictures at http://www.smsd.us/webpages/sstallings/pictures.cfm.

In the afternoon we headed over to Silver Springs, MD, for a visit at the Uniformed Services Medical Simulation Center (SimCenter). There they have the world's most advanced simulation center for training medical personnel in surgery techniques, medical procedures (such as a colonoscopy), and patient interaction. We first visited the doctors office simulation. Each exam room was fully equipped and had a camera and microphone installed. A room full of computers allowed the trainer to watch every move made by the trainee. Trained actors and actresses from age 6 months (mothers are trained) to age 90 were the patients with a wide variety of symptoms.

The moulage area was overseen by a trained theater person. Her job was to make up the "patients" so they looked like they had very real injuries. From a refrigerator she extracted a model of a broken bone breaking through the skin. This would be applied with a light adhesive to a person's elbow. Other injuries were produced from cuts to broken bones hidden under the skin.

From there we toured the virtual simulation lab. Here large screens are set up in a huge room in which the medical personnel are placed. They are given special 3D glasses and soon find themselves in a war zone where actors and actresses are portraying actual victims of shrapnel or gunshot. Students could put on similar glasses and get a feel for what it would be like to be training in such an environment. It was kinda like being inside a video game - very much like a real Matrix experience.

The last area we visited was the surgery simulation lab. Here students could try using laproscopic surgical instruments and experience performing a colonoscopy. A human manikin provided a lot of fun as it breathed, had a pulse, groaned, talked to the students and even coughed or vomited (sounds only). It reacted to medications, had an IV inserted in its arm, and was very life-like.

We left the SimCenter wanting to spend a lot more time there. In fact, there was so much more to see and do at both locations that we could have made a day of either one. Today students told me it was the best field trip they had taken in 12 years of education! That really made it all worthwhile.