SimMan 3G teaches life-saving lessons
Health careers
students resuscitate simulation model
SimMan 3G was in the health careers classroom at North Valley Career and Technology Center last week. The reason for his visit was two-fold – to simulate a medical situation, allowing students to practice life-saving skills, as well as to pique the students’ interest in medical-related fields.
Looking at his name, one might guess SimMan 3G is a super hero. What he is a patient simulator so advanced, it is actually pre-programmed to imitate functions of the human body. According to Katie Thompson, an education coordinator for the Eastern North Dakota Area Health Education Center (AHEC) satellite office in Grafton, SimMan 3G is programmed to simulate spontaneous breathing, chest rise and fall, heart sounds, pulse palpation, blood pressure, pupillary response, sweating, seizures and a host of other bodily functions. It responds to medications, CPR chest compressions and a host of other therapies and treatments, while its vital signs, oxygen saturation level and EKG register on a wireless monitor.
“Healthcare instructors like using SimMan 3G because simulation responses are programmed into him,” Thompson said. “Depending on what students do, they create a reaction. If they do something right, the simulation continues. If not, their simulator patient will die.”
Thompson brought SimMan 3G into Val Heuchert’s classroom from his permanent home at Sanford Medical Center in Mayville. When SimMan experienced a severe asthma attack, then went into cardiac arrest, the health careers students took action – bringing him back to life performing CPR and bag-mask ventilation. Many of Heuchert’s students are already certified in CPR and Thompson said they did a very good job with that.
Heuchert said Thompson’s presentation was a good fit for her students.
“The demonstration was very good because the model was simulated so it seemed like a real situation,” Heuchert remarked. “For those students really interested in the medical field, this provided excellent instruction because students can practice on a model similar to the human body. If a mistake is made, they learn from it without harming a real person.”
The mission of AHEC is to bring medical career opportunity awareness to K-12 classrooms with the hope that more students will pursue healthcare careers in rural areas. Thompson travels to rural schools to discuss not only career opportunities, but to share education and training information and labor market trends to help students find the right medical career choice for them, as well. AHEC partners with state agencies, colleges and the healthcare industry to promote career fairs, career exploration days and summer programming.