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Medical simulators offer nurses hands-on training

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By Christopher Magan, Staff Writer Updated 12:16 PM Monday, August 23, 2010

CENTERVILLE — Noelle does everything expected from a woman in labor, she breaths heavily, her heart beat escalates, she groans in agony, even bleeds, but Noelle’s isn’t the typical pregnancy.

This delivery is an example of state-of-the-art medical simulator technology used to train thousands of medical professionals in the Miami Valley and across the country.

“It offers real-life, hands-on experiences to train doctors nurses and staff,” said John Smilie, of Gaumard Scientific, a Miami-based company that manufactures medical simulators. “The first reaction is a little like a deer in the headlights, but once they work with it they can really enhance their skills.”

Gaumard has made medical simulators for more than 60 years. The latest are wireless, remotely controlled patients that offer students the chance to repeatedly encounter unusual medical situations.

Simulators are vital to the education of thousands of medical students, said Patti Burnell, director of simulated education for Wright State University’s nursing  school.

“This is a great mechanism for the whole medical team who is caring for patients,” Burnell said. “Emergencies don’t happen often, but you need to have your staff prepared for them.”

Noelle can present students with a number of different emergency birthing scenarios including having the umbilical cord wrapped around the child’s neck and a breach birth, Smilie said. She speaks to students, has a heart rate and respiration, she can bleed and her water can break.

Noelle retails for around $40,000, but nursing instructors like Cherie Rebar, associate director of nursing at the Kettering College for Medical Arts, said simulators are priceless in the classroom.

“It sounds costly up front,” Rebar said. “When you talk about the volume of students who use it, it is very cost effective.”

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