You would probably like your young, new doctor to have some hands-on experience evaluating real patients or practicing medical procedures. That’s what UofL medical students are getting at the “sim lab” – the Paris Simulation Center at the School of Medicine.
Students learn on interactive, human-like robots and real people posing as patients. Sim lab technician Stuart Crawford says students learn how to draw blood, start an IV, deliver babies and do pelvic exams.
“Just about any clinical procedure that you can think of there’s a trainer (robot) for that,” Crawford said.
Student Ashley Lee was getting recently trained on CPR and surgical airways while also evaluating a UofL faculty member posing as a patient with abdominal pain.
“It just gives you a real life scenario of what you’d see in a hospital,” she said.
When he first interacted with the robots in the sim lab, future doctor Mark Eid didn’t realize they could breathe oxygen and talk, giving him feedback on whether he was doing a procedure the right way.
“I think it’s great training in a low stakes controlled environment before you get put into a hospital and patient encounter,” Eid said.
Check out more about the “sim lab:”
