By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Medical error ranks in the top 10 causes killing Americans.
Medical mistakes account for more deaths than car accidents, breast cancer and AIDS combined, according to a 2000 Institute of Medicine report, "To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System."
To improve those statistics, Southwestern Michigan College's "flagship" Nursing Center of Excellence acquired "SimMan," a $42,000 computer-operated robot which the 10-member nursing staff will be trained to use beginning today.
SimMan's special software lets each faculty member create and execute their own real-life scenario appropriate to what they are teaching.
He wheezes, fills with fluid, changes the sound of his fluttering heart, coughs on command, even dies and comes back to life.
A "universal patient," he can be an adult or a child.
His lifelike features make it easier for students to think they are working on a real patient, although for second-semester students Amy Anderson of Elkhart, Ind., and Dollene Smallbone of Dowagiac, treating SimMan for a heart attack Thursday for a media unveiling, lenses and microphones trained on them provoked stress that was no simulation.
Then, with their help, "I feel better now."
Can SimMan give birth? "Equal opportunity parts" are included, SimMan's programmer chuckles.
This new trend in medical training lets students learn in a realistic, but sheltered environment.
According to Laerdal, after a student receives this style of training, he or she can walk into any situation, recognize the circumstances and react automatically.
Proper training teaches students to practice critical thinking. SMC has four other mannequins with half to two-thirds of SimMan's capabilities.
Laerdal says students also learn how and when to perform procedures, from difficult airway management to rapid recognition and use of a defibrillator to performing cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR), drug therapy and treating trauma.
Benefits of SMC having this technology are quite amazing, Foster said.
It's not something all academic institutions offer. There are only a dozen Michigan schools with SimMan technology. Foster believes SMC is the only Michiana college to have it and one of only 1,000 educational institutions and medical training facilities in the country so equipped. There are 1,800 SimMan robots worldwide, as they have been on the market for less than two years.
SimMan cropped up on Foster's wish list when she first learned of its capabilities last year at a conference. But it wasn't until a SimMan was displayed during the Center of Excellence's open house that the college staff, Board of Trustees and SMC Foundation members understood why she was so convinced it would be an asset to the program.
And it didn't take long. Less than three months from the day of the open house, SimMan found his new home at SMC, where Foster joked she will be glad to be getting beyond "tucking him into bed" to putting the robot to work.
Instead of the old adage, "See one, do one, teach one," medical educators can say, "See one, practice safely, do one, teach one."
Foster and others in the medical profession realize that simulation will never completely replace learning by interacting with real patients, but this technology allows early learning to take place in a controlled, safe way at a time when nurses are in short supply.
SMC encourages area health care workers to coordinate continuing education programs through the college so they, too, can benefit from practicing real-world emergencies on SimMan.
Groups that could benefit include EMS workers, fire and rescue workers and the military.
Contact Elaine Foster at 800-456-8675 for more information about how to organize a continuing education program with SimMan.