Page 5 - COM Outlook - Winter 2013

5 COM Outlook . Winter 2013
Burn Simulation Clinic Educates Students
By Debra R. Gibbs, B.A., Medical Communications Coordinator
In September, second-year NSU-COM
students spent a week in the Simulation
Laboratory doing hands-on training by
working with simulated burn victims.
Heather McCarthy, D.O., assistant
professor of medical education and direc-
tor of the Simulation/Standardized Patient
Lab, said while the burn case was part of
the 2011 curriculum, “This year we took
the simulation to a whole other level.”
As part of OMS-II procedures and
clinical skills week, Jeff Golomb, the lab’s
simulation clinic technician, worked with
other colleagues to create burn wounds—
raw, dark, and, crusty patches—all over a
mannequin that could manifest distress by
wheezing and moaning. Starting with a kit
containing generic prefabricated wounds,
Golomb and his coworkers created spe-
cialized burns for the mannequins.
The burns were brought to life with
moulage—the French word for theatrical
makeup. “The mannequins are expensive,
so I had to come up with ways to cre-
ate that look and have it easily removed
after a week of observation and study,”
Golomb explained. “With a protective
plastic layer underneath, we used liquid
latex and tissue to create the texture and
added the color with a variety of makeup
techniques.” With a moisture effect added
by using a facial peel donated by Dr. Mc-
Carthy, the simulated burn patients were
ready for a week of treatment.
“It was research,” Golomb said. “There
is a ton of theatrical effect information
available, so my only contribution was
combining different techniques for our
specific simulation application.” According
to Dr. McCarthy, “It’s like taking five cook-
books and making your own recipe.”
The simulation is used to “engage
students and immerse them into a simu-
lated situation so when they see human
burn victims, they feel comfortable with
seeing and working on them,” Golomb
said. “That is what we are trying to do
with the simulation and why we try to
make it as real as possible.”
Sometimes the realism of simulation
learning is intense. “We had two stu-
dents faint last year when drawing fake
blood,” Dr. McCarthy said. “This year we
had the same thing happen,” Golomb
responded, remembering a student who
swooned in a side room.
Students are actively engaged in
utilizing several skills while treating the
case. They also have the opportunity to
apply concepts learned in lecture, such
as the rule of nines used to assess the
amount of body surface that has been
burned, and the Parkland formula—a
starting point for fluid resuscitation
while working in the Simulation Clinic.
“We teach them basic procedures like
drawing blood, starting an IV, and intubat-
ing,” Dr. McCarthy said. “Burn victims
can lose a lot of blood and fluids, so an
IV needs to be started. They place the IV
into the mannequin, and if they want to
draw blood, they can also do that. They
can also assess how much fluid to give
and calculate the percent of the body that
is burned. There are different degrees of
burns, ranging from first to fourth degree,
and the students can estimate the type of
burns thanks to the moulage.”
The ultimate goal, said Dr. McCarthy,
is “to get students to be more comfort-
able with these procedures by learning
through a hands-on approach that allows
them to realize, ‘Oh wow, I can take care
of a patient by using these skills.’”
According to Dr. McCarthy, the
students enjoyed the dynamism of
managing the mannequin’s breathing or
fluid-loss problems on the spot. “Stu-
dents serving on the Curriculum Commit-
tee told us how much they loved it,” she
said. “In fact, I had multiple students tell
me this was their favorite week of medi-
cal school so far.”
John Pellosie, Jr., D.O., M.P.H. (second
from left) working with several students.