First-year students from the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, College of Pharmacy and Athletic Training Program came together Oct. 16 and 18 at the Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation (CAMLS) for a team simulation training involving 20 standardized patients portraying college soccer players suffering from compound leg fractures.
The simulation scenario starts with interdisciplinary teams triaging and stabilizing injured soccer players and transporting them to the emergency room.
In their first interprofessional education (IPE) experience, students broke into small groups, each overseen by a faculty preceptor. Each multidisciplinary team was assigned one soccer player to learn the transitions of care, from triaging a critical injury to rehabilitation. Starting with stabilizing the injured soccer player on the field, the students worked together to transport the athlete to the emergency room, and then followed the patient to surgery, to the hospital floor, and finally to physical therapy. The IPE training also allowed students to explore the various roles and different strengths of health care professionals who care for injured college athletes.
“The overall goal is to have good communication between teams of health care providers,” said Dawn Schocken, PhD, MCOM director of Experiential Learning and Simulation. “No one takes care of patients in a vacuum anymore. Being able to rely on health care providers across multiple disciplines is the key to getting the best possible outcome for the patient, and that’s the message we are trying to teach.”
In the emergency room at CAMLS, team members pass along detailed information about the patient to help ensure the surgery team can make the best treatment decisions.
To complete the transition of care simulation, the physical therapy team follows up the with standardized patient post surgery and offers recommendations on rehabilitation.
Teams of students debrief with their faculty preceptors to discuss lessons learned from the simulation.
Video by Fredrick J. Coleman, and photos by Eric Younghans, USF Health Communications and Marketing
