Eight-year-old Perry moaned in pain as doctors rushed to his bedside. His grandmother demanded answers of the physicians clapping electrodes to his chest. But things were going downhill quickly, and the half-dozen doctors and nurses in the room focused on threading a tube down Perry's windpipe and shocking his stalled heart back into action.
Then, as Perry's vital signs stabilized, a voice bellowed over the emergency-room loudspeakers: "Scenario over." Perry, a computer-powered manikin, shut down, and the staff filed out of the ER.
That scene, on a recent afternoon at North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System's medical simulation center, is part of the latest in medical education at hospitals and medical schools: increasingly sophisticated simulations that offer hands-on training, much of the intense pressure of hospital work, and none of the risk.
Part robotics and part theater, these simulations combine ever more lifelike manikins and other technology with stagecraft. Perry is a boy-size medical manikin with a pulse, breathing sounds, blinking eyes and the ability to spurt blood on command.
But the manikins aren't the biggest innovation in medical simulation. Rather, it's the re-creation of lifelike experiences for doctors and nurses. That's where the stagecraft comes in. "Grandma" was an actress from Long Island. In another simulation at the Lake Success, N.Y., center, a nurse planned to give a $70,000 manikin a skin infection by gluing honey-filled bubble wrap to its leg.
The goal is to inure doctors to the tense situations they'll face in real-life hospital wards and emergency rooms. That means juggling technical skills with angry family members, malfunctioning equipment, short-handedness and unpredictable medical complications. To that end, modern simulation focuses not on rote memorization, but practicing teamwork in real time.
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