Career Development : Calendar

DC chapter - Hands-on medical simulation

05/18/05     New York, NY

Attendees had the chance to play doctor at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Adam I. Levine, MD, director of simulation in the anesthesiology department at MSSM, gave a brief introduction to the role of simulation in medicine and then let us play with the simulation tools. The center has three full-scale adult mannequin simulators and a five-year-old child simulator. It also has several part-task trainers for virtual bronchoscopy, colonoscopy and intravenous placement.

Like cockpit training for pilots, medical simulators allow physicians to practice specific tasks such as colonoscopy or treat human mannequins without risking patient safety. Currently, more than two-thirds of anesthesiology trainees go through simulation training in their residency. The technique is gaining ground among experienced physicians, as evidenced by a recent FDA decision that requires doctors who want to perform a new and technically challenging procedure to practice first on a simulator.