Photo By Tech. Sgt. Kayleigh Phillips | Airmen from the 141st Medical Group check vital signs on a medical mannequin at the...... read more read more
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The 141st Medical Group recently partnered with the Washington State University medical training lab to provide realistic hands-on training with our Airmen. On Oct. 3, Sunday of drill weekend, several Airmen spent their morning in a classroom with students from WSU receiving classroom instruction to prepare them for the afternoon’s portion of hands-on medical training.
The 141st and WSU have a longstanding partnership that benefits both institutions by partnering varying experience levels of military medical professionals with seasoned civilian professionals. This helps Guard medical personnel refresh their skills, expand their knowledge base and gain experience.
The focus of this specific training was on treatment and precautions to take while treating burn victims. While the training is extremely valuable it is not without its challenges.
"The most challenging aspect of the training is not working on real people,” said Master Sgt. Nance Smith, 141st Medical Group health systems technician. "Placing an IV in rubber arms is great to get the proper technique down, but the feel and experience is very different from human flesh."
A medical dummy can’t simulate the pain or human emotions that a real person would be feeling so there are many differences between the simulation and actually performing on a real live human. However, the facilities are state of the art and highly advanced for being a simulation.
"We simply don’t have the technology, space and realism that they offer on the WSU campus," said Nance. "The mannequins have vital signs, breath and lung sounds, blink their eyes and even bleed."
An additional benefit to training off-base is that it allows Airmen to fully focus on learning.
"I liked that we were able to come together in a place away from the unit," said Tech. Sgt. Courtney McKasson, 141st Medical Group Detachment 1 admin and operations non-commissioned officer. "It really allowed us to focus on the training instead of being pulled in the many different directions a typical drill day can take you. We were fully engaged in the education and training being offered with minimal distractions."
According to WSU, the Virtual Clinical Center is the central point for all simulation-based training at the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. The center boasts 10 clinical exam rooms, two high-fidelity simulation suites, a classroom for skills-based instruction, a conference room to support video debriefing, and lab space.
The curriculum supported by the Virtual Clinical Center encompasses all aspects and modalities of health care simulation. These include trainers for teaching basic physical exam or clinical procedural skills, mannequin-based simulators to allow learners to experience the pressures of caring for a patient in an acute-care setting, and Resuscitation Quality Improvement system and computer-based virtual reality simulations for the purposes of exploring emergent technologies and their application in educating the physicians of tomorrow.
"I was very appreciative of being able to run through a full lifelike training scenario," McKasson said. "Often, we practice individual pieces or individual skills, but having the ability to put it all together in a full scenario is incredibly eye opening. Learning how you react in the situation and learning your strengths and weaknesses can be critical in providing expert patient care when it really counts."
While the military itself offers unique training to medical professionals the partnership between WSU and the 141st Air Refueling Wing allows the Medical Group access to facilities that the Guard just can’t afford to have at every installation. Guardsmen see the value on the training and hope that the partnership will continue for years to come.
"It gives us the sense of realism we often lack with traditional military training," said McKasson. "It’s always nice to come together for a training event away from the work center in a top-notch facility that is absolutely incredible.”
| Date Taken: | 11.05.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 11.05.2021 18:06 |
| Story ID: | 408805 |
| Location: | SPOKANE, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 160 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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