Cariboo Memorial Hospital’s trauma room was turned into a classroom Tuesday morning while local doctors and nurses worked with ISTAN — a high fidelity simulator mannequin.
“We go through scenarios the local hospital has deemed important,” said Tracy Canuel, regional knowledge co-ordinator of the rural simulation program for Interior Health.
“You use your own equipment so you are getting used to finding things.”
Simulation leader Spencer Brown, an emergency doctor at Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops, said the four-to-five-hour course offers health care providers a non-threatening environment to practise in.
“They can work on improving communication and on things that are difficult to work on in real life situations,” Brown said, noting the classes are done with doctors and nurses working together because that’s more realistic.
Brown said the hospital in Kamloops is building a permanent simulation lab that will be open full time so people can practice.
It takes about one hour to complete one scenario, Brown told Dr. Mike Garrard and nurses Marina Crick and Kim Ramier just before they began the first one.
“We do everything as real as possible,” Canuel said.
“ISTAN does have chest sounds, heart sounds, he breathes, his chest goes up and down, he has palpable pulses and he does blink.”
ISTAN’s price tag is about $80,000, with an additional expensive warranty, Canuel said, noting there’s a pediatric version of the mannequin that costs a bit less.