The USF Health Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation (CAMLS) first opened 10 years ago in March 2012, where leaders from the community, education, industry, and simulation partners from around the world met for the grand opening in downtown Tampa.

Under one roof, the 90,000 square-foot, three-story facility houses the latest simulation technology and experiences to train the full spectrum of health care professionals as one of the nation’s top medical simulation facilities.

Part of the mosaic of USF Health’s expanded presence in downtown Tampa, CAMLS, is within walking distance of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine and Heart Institute in the Water Street Tampa urban development district.

CAMLS Grand Opening

“The goal was to build almost a Disney World for clinical providers who could travel from around the world to CAMLS to train with the best technology using simulation, incredible bio skills, fully realistic labs so that they can improve their procedural and clinical skills and then go back to their work and give the best practices both from USF Health experts but also utilizing the latest and greatest technology,” said Dr. Yasuharu “Haru” Okuda, MD, FACEP, FSSH, executive director for USF Health CAMLS and associate vice president for USF Health Interprofessional Education and Practice.

Until recently, CAMLS focused solely on training biomedical businesses and health care professionals. However, that initiative has expanded over the years to offer hands-on simulation training to USF Health students and faculty dedicated to advancing their clinical skills and improving patient safety and quality of care in Tampa Bay, Florida, the U.S., and the world.

“In the beginning, this advanced medical learning simulation was really focused around businesses and training and teaching health care professionals. But over the years, we’ve really evolved into a place where we conduct research in even more advanced training and education, like in virtual reality and augmented reality. We also now impact our future health care professionals by training students from our College of Medicine and College of Nursing both separately and as part of interprofessional teams,” Dr. Okuda said.

Dr. Charles Lockwood and USF President Rhea Law.

USF President Rhea H. Law and Charles Lockwood, MD, MHCM, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine (MCOM), have been active participants and contributed greatly to the success of CAMLS. President Law has been on the board of directors over the years and has continued to support the organization. Meanwhile, Dr. Lockwood has helped support the efforts of CAMLS around education, research, and innovation.

EMS instructors participated in a training class hosted by the USF Health CAMLS at the Pinellas County EMS Training Center.

Recently, CAMLS has been working on a new community outreach program called “CAMLS Without Walls.” The program was developed so the facility could go out into the community and deliver training through simulation-based education.

“The future of CAMLS is really bright,” Dr. Okuda said. “We have some incredible partnerships with startup companies in Tampa, where we’re building on our business relationships to innovate in areas such as virtual reality and augmented reality. We are also building our research teams to identify new technologies for training and education, and we’re publishing articles on that research. Now we are building a mobile training program called “CAMLS Without Walls,” so we are not bound by training only within CAMLS but can now go out into our community and deliver the training in hospitals in our rural environments and bring USF Health Expertise to places that need it the most.”

Story and video by Ryan Rossy, USF Health Communications and Marketing

USF Health Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation (CAMLS) faculty and staff took their expertise – and their technology – to Pinellas County to give emergency medical service instructors hands-on practice they could then take back to first-responders across the county.

The “train the trainer” exercise was offered by the USF Health CAMLS, to Pinellas County EMS instructors for three days as a part of a new community outreach program. EMS instructors from across Pinellas gathered for an all-day instructor development class led by Yasuharu “Haru” Okuda, MD, FACEP, FSSH, USF Health CAMLS executive director and USF Health executive director for interprofessional education and practice, and Ryan McKenna, DO, fellowship director, the interprofessional simulation fellowship at USF Health CAMLS and director of simulation, Emergency Medicine. The course focused on how to properly use and troubleshoot the technology and the best practices for simulation-based education.

Dr. Haru Okuda, MD, FACEP, FSSH, USF Health CAMLS executive director and USF Health executive director for interprofessional education and practice, taught the EMS instructors how to program and use the computerized mannequins to simulate various medical emergencies when teaching classes of their own.

“Simulation-based education is well-known to be very valuable in emergency medical services and emergency medical care in general, and we are excited to have the expertise of the USF Health CAMLS staff here to help us do a train-the-trainer,” said Angus Jameson, MD, MPH, USF Health affiliate associate professor of emergency medicine and medical director for Pinellas County EMS.

The EMS instructors gathered into two groups and ran through various scenarios with their mid-fidelity Gaumard ^®manikins. Hidden behind the television monitor used to display vital signs, Dr. Okuda and Dr. McKenna began the first round for their teams by acting as the patient, or the voice of the manikin. After a debrief, the instructors got a chance to play the roles of patient, family, and learners, while some served as facilitators who ran the simulation software.

During debrief, Ryan McKenna, DO, fellowship director, the interprofessional simulation fellowship at USF Health CAMLS and director of simulation, Emergency Medicine, goes over best-practices with the participating EMS instructors.

Shawn Tatham, EMS training coordinator for Pinellas County said, “in simulations, we can slow things down a little bit, we can get them into a structured assessment pattern and ensure that they’re doing their treatments according to our standardized protocol, and we can create a nice learning environment so they can go out and apply that for the best patient care.”

At the end of the scenario-based training, the EMS instructors will take what they have learned and apply it to their continuing education training with emergency medical technicians and paramedics across the county.

Andre Nelson, certified healthcare simulation operations specialist at USF Health CAMLS, helps EMS instructors with the behind-the-scenes technology that controls the manikin.

Video by Torie Doll and photos by Allison Long

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUoZUWfff5k

To work together effectively as practitioners in a 21^st Century health system students must learn together.  And, equally important, the coordinated, team approach to patient care that today’s students aspire to must be modeled across clinical settings where they will practice after graduation.

That was the overarching message of USF Health’s inaugural Interprofessional Education Day held Nov. 16 in the USF Marshall Student Center.

The event brought together more than 250 graduate students, faculty and deans from all USF Health colleges, along with alumni and Tampa Bay community partners, to discuss the advantages and challenges of preparing students for a future that includes greater use of interprofessional health services.

The inaugural IPE day was attended by students, faculty and deans from all four USF Health colleges, along with alumni and community partners.

Interprofessional education, or IPE, is the essence of the USF Health brand. As the region’s only academic medical center, USF Health is uniquely positioned to organize, integrate and focus the capabilities of many health disciplines on behalf of the Tampa Bay community.

“This day highlights the power of USF Health – with its colleges of medicine, nursing, public health, and pharmacy, school of physical therapy and rehabilitation sciences, as well as athletic training and physician assistant programs – to take the lead in how interprofessional health education can be implemented,” said Victoria L. Rich, PhD, RN, FAAN, senior associate vice president of USF Health and dean of the USF College of Nursing.

Dr. Rich co-chaired IPE Day with Jay Wolfson, DrPH, JD, associate vice president of health law, policy and safety at USF Health and distinguished service professor of public health, medicine and pharmacy. They planned the inaugural event with a committee comprised of faculty members from all four health colleges and a student representative.

USF College of Nursing Dean Victoria L. Rich, PhD, welcomes speaker Chad Epps, MD, executive director of healthcare simulation at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences, to the Oval Theater stage.

“By sharing knowledge and training together, we create an environment ready for creativity and innovation,” USF System President Judy Genshaft said in her welcoming remarks. “In patient care, as we better understand each other, we provide more thoughtful care when we work as one team. Many times a patient’s life depends on it, as there is no single person or specialization that can ever address all the complexities of a patient’s needs… Truly the team-based approach embraced here at USF represents the future of health care.”

Charles J. Lockwood, MD, MHCM, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine, has championed improved patient care and outcomes through stronger interdisciplinary collaboration. In his introduction, he painted a picture of the national health care challenges creating an impetus for IPE – including mounting pressure to reduce unprecedented health care costs.

The U.S. spends more on health care – nearly 18 percent of its GDP – than any other developed country, and with largely worse health outcomes, Dr. Lockwood said. This has led to a health care system transitioning from fee-for-service (care based on volume of services provided) to a focus on reducing cost while improving quality of care, known as value-based care.

From left: Kevin Sneed, PharmD, dean of the USF College of Pharmacy; Jay Wolfson, DrPH, IPE Day co-chair; Scott Newell, MAS, IPE Day speaker; Charles Lockwood, MD, USF Health senior vice president and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine; Victoria Rich, PhD, dean of the College of Nursing and IPE Day co-chair; Donna Petersen, ScD, dean of the College of Public Health; and Chad Epps, MD, IPE Day speaker.

“The only way we can provide that type of care is together. It can’t possibly be accomplished by the doctor alone, or the nurse alone, or the pharmacist alone,” Dr. Lockwood said. “In order to have that very efficient, tightly knit health care delivery system, we must train together, practice together, and do research together.”

Medical errors are the third leading cause of deaths in the U.S. after heart disease and cancer, according to a Johns Hopkins patient safety analysis. “Not only is there an economic imperative for IPE, but also a moral and ethical imperative to ensure we maximize patient safety,” he added.

The morning program featured two national speakers. Both emphasized the important role that simulation-based interprofessional activities can play in reducing medical errors by teaching health professionals at all levels how to think and act as a mutually supportive, problem-solving team.

IPE Day speaker Scott Newell, standing, interacts with Frederick Slone, MD, (blue shirt), who has a teaching appointment with the MCOM Department of Medical Education.

In the first presentation, Scott Newell, a commercial pilot and paramedic turned health-care simulation educator, drew parallels and distinctions between aviation and health care teams and explained how team training with simulation and crew (crisis) resource management techniques are critical to more effective communication, improved safety and quality outcomes.  All human beings, no matter how well trained and competent, make mistakes – but many medical errors result from a chain of events that can usually be averted at several points, preventing the medical error from causing severe patient harm, Newell said.

The second presentation by Chad Epps, MD, executive director of health care simulation at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and past president of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, provided examples of how other academic institutions across the country are structuring their simulation-enhanced IPE.   Dr. Epps said IPE is not students from different health disciplines sitting alongside each another in the same classroom and learning in parallel, but rather “students in two or more professions learning about each other’s professional roles, learning how to communicate with one another, and learning to provide mutual support to other members of the team.”

An interprofessional team looks over their mission during the collaborative escape room exercise. From left:  Amy Schwartz, faculty member, College of Pharmacy, Zemelia Miller, student, Physician Assistant Program; Anne Marie Buford, student, School of Physical Therapy; Chris Chrosniak, student, College of Nursing; Andrew Armstrong, student, College of Nursing; Anna Torrens Armstrong, faculty member, College of Public Health; and Kanisha Jenkins, student, Athletic Training Program.

At the morning session wrap-up, Dr. Lockwood challenged faculty to develop an IPE curriculum that takes full advantage of USF Health’s state-of-the-art simulation resources as well as clinical opportunities with primary teaching hospital Tampa General Hospital and other community partners.

A lunchtime panel discussion, moderated by Dr. Wolfson, featured the deans of all four USF Heath colleges and other key leaders, and the IPE Day guest speakers.

The afternoon culminated with a fun, interactive escape room exercise – a spy game designed to build camaraderie and teamwork within the 15 interdisciplinary student groups participating.

From left, top row: USF System President Judy Genshaft and Dr. Rich with the winning USF Health student team Michael Woolard, College of Nursing; Tyler Mauzy, School of Physical Therapy; Daniel Segarra, Morsani College of Medicine, Dr. Emily Hall, a faculty member for the Athletic Training Program; Matt Allman, College of Public Health; and Dr. Lockwood. Bottom row with the winning trophy: students German Herrera Alzate (left), Physician Assistant Program, and Jennifer Willms, School of Physical Therapy. Not pictured: Lucinda Shaw, adjunct faculty member, College of Nursing.

What They Said: 

We’ve known that poor communication and system errors are major causes of preventable death in 1999 and here we are in 2018, and we still haven’t made a whole lot of advancements…  We have a tremendous opportunity to impact patient safety and change the way we deliver health care.

Speaker Chad Epps, MD, referring to the Institute of Medicine’s landmark report “To Err is Human” published in 1999

Dr. Epps: IPE activities created with shared, linked outcomes and objectives can improve patient safety and care. Interprofessional faculty development also has to be a priority for IPE to work.

One difference between the airline industry and health care is that when a pilot screws up, the first place he ends up is a smoking hole in the ground… In health care we still tend to bury our mistakes… How many of you have filed an incident report and never found out what happened with it?

Speaker Scott Newell, MAS, NREMTP, CHSE, talking about the motivating factors for the safety culture in aviation driving crew members to speak up when they see a potential error

***

Today’s IPE Day helps us think about how we can take our current IPE offerings to the next level. There is little doubt that if we use the energy and momentum generated at events like this, USF Health can become a model of IPE across the education continuum, and our patients and the community will be the better for it.

Bryan A. Bognar, MD, MPH, FACP, vice dean for educational affairs, USF Health, Morsani College of Medicine

The lunchtime panel discussion included deans and other key leaders from USF Health, and the two featured IPE Day speakers.

I am committed to working with the deans and their respective IPE experts to build the best interprofessional education experience possible for our students so they will graduate to become IPE champions in their future practice environment.

Haru Okuda, MD, FACEP, FSSH , USF Health’s first executive director of interprofessional education simulation programming and CAMLS executive director

***

Part of the reason to engage the practice community is to push the environment toward IPE. We hear from our graduates who are well trained (in interprofessionalism) that when they get out in the workforce sometimes they are told “We don’t do that here.”

Donna Petersen, ScD, USF Health senior associate vice president and dean of the USF College of Public Health, on the gap between enthusiasm for interprofessional learning and interprofessional practice

***

Today begins to define the culture of what USF Health will be moving forward. Every program will begin to define how they are part of massive health care-related changes… We’re asking for buy-in for IPE from everybody.

Kevin Sneed, PharmD, USF Health senior associate vice president and dean of the USF College of Pharmacy

Dr. Kevin Sneed comments during the panel discussion.

Research indicates that the effects of IPE for graduates do not not typically persist in the practice area. Partnering with employers and patients has the potential to address this “missing link,” with the goal of improving the quality and effectiveness of health care. We are committed to developing and sustaining these vital collaborative partnerships.

Laura Lee (Dolly) Swisher, PT, MDiv, PhD, FNAP, FAPTA, associate dean, USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, and director of the School of Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Sciences

***

It was great to see the diversity of health disciplines represented within USF Health… This day helped broaden our ability to collaborate, be problem solvers, lean on people’s strengths to do the best we could to succeed in our mission.

Michael Woolard, third-year nurse anesthesia student and member of the winning team for the IPE Day escape room exercise

Alyssa Radel, (center) an athletic training student in the MCOM, reacts to an IPE Day speaker.

Students pick up the dossiers and burner phones their teams need to begin the IPE Day escape room exercise, which involved a mission to rescue their “kidnapped” leader (played by Dr. Charles Lockwood) from an evil robot (played by USF Health’s Joe Ford). The “mission” promoted collaboration and problem solving while encouraging the students to have fun.

Team leader Rohit Iyer (far right), a second-year medical student, works on a clue with fellow team members.

For one of the escape room activities, teams were asked to create a “spy tool.” Here, one team uses an Apple watch and the team leader’s bow tie to make a “bow-tie spy cam.”

-Video by Torie M. Doll and photos by Eric Younghans and Freddie Coleman, USF Health Communications and Marketing.  Jessica Samaniego, USF College of Nursing, also contributed photos to this story.

When the hockey player is a high-tech manikin, medical professionals take emergency training to a whole new level

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI3DpKOFZTI

The USF Health Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation brought an advanced patient simulator to Amalie Arena Sept. 10 so that Tampa Bay Lightning team physicians and athletic trainers, Tampa Fire Rescue paramedics, and a few USF Health emergency medicine trainees at Tampa General Hospital could more realistically practice life-saving stabilization procedures on the ice.

At the beginning of a simulation scenario, Tom Mulligan, head athletic trainer for the Tampa Bay Lightning, rushes over to an injured “player” down on the ice.

The simulation scenarios were performed on a life-like manikin, fully outfitted in Lightning gear, with laptop-controlled breathing, heart rates and pulses, eyes that could blink and dilate, and an artificial tongue that mimicked a real one. The training exercises included simulations of heart rhythm disturbances and cardiac arrest, as well as airway trauma from a neck injury. An ambulance was standing by just like during actual Lightning games.

“This was a first for us,” said Tom Mulligan, head athletic trainer for the Tampa Bay Lightning. “I’m only aware of one other team that uses a simulator for these rehearsals that we all do.”

From the players’ bench area, the emergency response team prepares to lift the patient simulator strapped to a long board to immobilize the cervical spine.

The annual training helps prepare participants how to respond more effectively as a team in the rare event that an actual hockey player needs emergency care during a game.

For the last few years, the Lightning’s medical staff, paramedics who cover the games and TGH/TEAM Health emergency physicians would talk through scenarios and someone dressed up as a player for the practice. However, team members could not intubate, do cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or perform other emergency procedures on a human being.

“One common theme I kept hearing tonight was practicing with the simulator was a great experience. It really took our training to the next level – a whole new learning curve,” Mulligan said. “We’re extremely fortunate to have USF and CAMLS nearby, literally in our backyard, as a resource.”

Andre Nelson, simulation operations specialist at USF Health CAMLS, looks over the manikin’s computer-programmed medical emergency with CAMLS Executive Director Haru Okuda, MD

Ryan McKenna, DO, simulation director for USF Health’s emergency medicine residency program, helped lead the training on the ice, players’ bench and arena tunnel with CAMLS providing simulation equipment and technical support.

“With this in situ simulation training, we were trying to integrate people from multiple domains and specialties into a unique environment that not everyone practices in on a day-to-day basis,” Dr. McKenna said. “The coolest thing for me was seeing a whole bunch of medical professionals come together to improve process and response times.”

A Tampa Fire Rescue paramedic rushes the stabilized “player” to a waiting ambulance.

Haru Okuda, MD, the new executive director of USF Health CAMLS, said the center was excited to partner with the Lightning for this first training and looks forward to more opportunities to engage with the Tampa Bay community.

Every team member participating in the training at Amalie Arena is an expert in their discipline and in a familiar setting like the emergency room the simulation scenarios would have likely unfolded with ease, Dr. Okuda said. “But, because here they are in such a foreign environment, with helmet and pads and skates to deal with, you can see what a challenge it can be. Even the experts initially struggled with how to manage the ‘patient.’”

One of the team’s emergency medicine physicians intubates to maintain an open airway.

Fortunately, the team is working on a manikin, not an actual player. And they can practice more than once.

“Once they run through a scenario and realize that some of the ways they would normally approach a problem aren’t working, then they are able to restart and try a different way to produce a better patient outcome,” Dr. Okuda said. “So, when the player has a real-life emergency, they can assess it and respond the best possible way.”

Ryan McKenna, DO (center), director of simulation training for the USF Health emergency medicine residency, speaks to the team at a debrief following one of the simulation scenarios.

Jason Wilson, MD, (right) associate medical director of the Emergency Department at Tampa General Hospital, listens to Dr. McKenna lead the debrief.

Rachel Semmons, MD, an emergency physician at TGH/TEAM Health and assistant program director of USF Health’s emergency medicine residency, contributes to the debrief.  Dr. Semmons is also co-medical director of Tampa Fire Rescue and USF’s EMS fellowship director.

Diego Riveros, MD, (left) a second-year emergency medicine resident at USF Health, and Anish Zachariah, MD, of TGH/TEAM Health, who directs the third-year emergency medicine clerkship for USF Health medical students.

-Video and photos by Torie M. Doll, USF Health Communications and Marketing

As many as 88 percent of human trafficking victims in the United States interact with a health care professional. Yet these professionals’ ability to recognize the signs of human trafficking and intervene appropriately is hindered by a lack of training.

Now a new medical school curriculum to fill this training gap has been proposed and tested by researchers from the University of Louisville (UL), Harvard University and the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla.

USF Health’s Michelle Lyman

Michelle Lyman, an MD/MPH student in the SELECT program at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, joined faculty and staff from UL and Harvard in exploring the use of a patient simulation training module incorporated into the third year of medical school. Their research was published this month in the journal Medical Education Online.

The curriculum, known as the Medical Student Instruction in Global Human Trafficking, or M-SIGHT, was created by the UL School of Medicine to prepare students to recognize patients who may be victims of human trafficking and intervene on their behalf.  The Morsani College of Medicine has adopted this curriculum, and teaches Tampa Bay area-specific resources available for trafficked persons in the online learning module portion of the program.

M-SIGHT includes a standardized patient simulation case in which an adolescent patient presents with classic symptoms of a sexually transmitted disease as well as common characteristics of victims of human trafficking: poor eye contact, reluctance to communicate with the physician, inconsistencies in patient history, tattoos that could suggest branding and evidence of physical abuse. The simulation concludes with feedback from the standardized patient participant and documentation by the learner.

“The case was designed to expose future physicians to the complexity of human trafficking.  The simulation center provides a learning environment to explore uneasy feelings in difficult clinical scenarios and practice building trust,” Lyman said. “We, as health care professionals, are not here to merely tell patients that they must leave their trafficker. Rather, our aim should be giving them tools to be able to leave successfully, with their own self-reserve.”

The initial project was implemented over a 16-month period and the authors are now evaluating the data collected from the students. They plan to share an analysis of the curriculum’s effectiveness in the future.

For more about M-SIGHT, click here.

For Lyman’s medical student perspective on human trafficking, click here.

-Content from a University of Louisville news release contributed to this article.

Under the bright lights of the surgical skills laboratory at the USF Health Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation (CAMLS), medical students and surgical residents practice together.  Two learners to each life-sized operating room table, they focus on honing their suturing techniques using cryopreserved aortas.

In another surgical lab, course faculty evaluate vascular surgery fellows as they work through all the tasks needed to repair an abdominal aortic aneurysm, including threading a tiny catheter through a simulated femoral artery.

In the trauma operating room, another group of trainees gathers around a large monitor to observe as an instructor inserts a central line into an endovascular simulator.

Dr. Ian Nordon, a vascular surgery fellow from England, watches the monitor as he uses a simulator to work through some of the critical steps required to repair an abdominal aortic aneurysm.

“This place is unique,” said Dr. Ian Nordon, a vascular surgery fellow who works at a university hospital in London, England.  “I’ve never seen anything like it, certainly not in the United Kingdom system where most of our training is still very much on patients rather than on simulators.”

“Amazing,” said Dr. Erica Mitchell, associate professor of vascular surgery at Oregon Health and Science University.  “A facility with all this space dedicated to learning and assessment of competency is impressive.”

Drs. Nordon and Mitchell were among the participants for one of the first programs offered at CAMLS, a 90,000-square-foot facility encompassing three floors of innovative simulation technology and experiences with education and research excellence under one roof.  The Introduction to Academic Vascular Surgery course, which drew more than 45 medical students and vascular surgeons from across the United States as well as Canada, included simulation exercises and demonstrations on the first day.

Dr. Erica Mitchell observes as a medical student and general surgery resident practice suturing an aorta.

Such tools are needed both to measure the effectiveness of simulation training and optimize its use, Dr. Mitchell said.

Dr. Mitchell holds the rating instrument developed by the Association of Program Directors in Vascular Surgery to assess the performance of basic vascular surgery skills across different levels of trainees.

“The beauty of simulation is that it allows a medical student or junior resident to practice and make mistakes on a machine where no one is hurt, instead of on a human being,” said Dr. Karl Illig, director of the USF Health Division of Vascular Surgery, who co-directed the course with USF’s Dr. Murray Shames.

“But, there’s still a gap between simulation as it exists today and what it could be,” Dr. Illig said. “CAMLS will be a leader in determining how to make simulation training work as well as possible in improving physician competency and patient safety.”

Medical students practice ultrasound-guided central venous catheter placement on a "Blue Phantom" simulator.

While more research is needed to determine whether learning augmented by simulation training is superior to more traditional educational methods, simulation appears to help shorten the learning curve for acquiring competency in basic skills, said Dr. Jason Lee, associate professor and director of the Vascular Surgery Residency and Fellowship Program at Stanford University.

“Simulation seems to accelerate the process of getting trainees from novice to an acceptable skill level” before they begin operating on patients, said Lee, who is studying whether a simulation-based endovascular curriculum improves residents’ performance and clinical outcomes.

USF Health's Dr. Karl Illig (above) and Dr. Murray Shames (below) were course co-directors.

Dr. Pushpinder Sivia, a USF senior vascular surgery fellow who will graduate in July, has visited CAMLS several times since it opened.  In his experience, Dr. Sivia said, simulation is valuable because it allows surgeons to practice complex or new procedures repeatedly. “You can do dry runs in a (risk-free) place like this before tackling a complicated case in the operating room,” he said.

Whether someone is an inexperienced medical student or a physician with years of expertise who needs to update his or her skills, simulation “is the future,” APDVS’s Dr. Mitchell said. “With limits on time for residency training, the increasing emphasis on patient safety and unprecedented public demand for better health outcomes, simulation is becoming increasingly integrated into medical school training programs.”

Course participants gather for a demonstration of central line insertion using a high-fidelity simulator at CAMLS.

More than 30,000 health professionals from around the world are expected to visit USF Health CAMLS each year for education and training activities, from courses on advanced surgical techniques (using state-of-the-art simulators and robots) and interprofessonal team training, to research and innovation for the next generation of medical devices and simulation technology.

Medical students, residents and faculty gown up before entering the CAMLS Surgical Skills Laboratory for simulation exercises.

Photos by Eric Younghans, USF Health Communications

TAMPA, FL (April 9, 2012) – The American College of Cardiology has designated the USF Health Center of Advanced Learning and Simulation (CAMLS) as its first Center of Excellence in Education and Training.

USF Health held the grand opening for its $38 million CAMLS facility in downtown Tampa on March 30. The 90,000 square foot building brings an unprecedented level of technical and teamwork training, simulation and competence assessment under one roof, as well as significant research and device innovation capability.

Among the unique features at CAMLS will be the first hybrid catheterization lab used exclusively for training in the world. The hybrid OR allows health professionals to do both minimally invasive and open surgical procedures in the same operating room, a significant safety benefit for patients.

The hybrid catheterization lab/OR at USF Health CAMLS is the first of its kind in the world used exclusively for training. - Photo by Eric Younghans/USF Health Communications

“The American College of Cardiology is honored to designate CAMLS as our first Center of Excellence in Education and Training,” said ACC CEO Jack Lewin, MD. “CAMLS is leading the way in innovative health technology through the world’s first ever hybrid catheterization laboratory that will be used exclusively for training purposes.

“The ACC is thrilled to be a part of this new simulation program; it benefits the entire catheterization team from nurses and pharmacists to doctors,” Dr. Lewin said. “The type of personalized training offered through the new center will allow our physicians to continue on the path of advancement in quality cardiovascular care leading to better outcomes for patients.”

The ACC designation is in recognition of the realistic education and training facility offered at CAMLS and the broad-based curricula and relevant institutional and program accreditations obtained by USF Health on behalf of CAMLS.

“We’re really excited about our affiliation with the American College of Cardiology and what this partnership means for improving patient outcomes and reducing medical errors,” said Deborah Sutherland, PhD, CEO of CAMLS. “We look forward to working with the ACC to develop a host of events for cardiologists and other health professionals working in the cardiology area over the coming years.”

-USF Health-

USF Health’s mission is to envision and implement the future of health. It is the partnership of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, the College of Nursing, the College of Public Health, the College of Pharmacy, the School of Biomedical Sciences and the School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences; and the USF Physician’s Group. The University of South Florida is a global research university ranked 34th in federal research expenditures for public universities.

-The American College of Cardiology-

The American College of Cardiology (www.cardiosource.org) is a 40,000-member nonprofit medical society comprised of physicians, surgeons, nurses, physician assistants, pharmacists and practice managers. The College transforms cardiovascular care and improves heart health as it supports and advocates for quality improvement, patient-centered care, payment innovation and professionalism. The ACC bestows credentials upon cardiovascular specialists who meet its stringent qualifications and leads the formulation of health policy, standards and guidelines. It provides professional education, supports and disseminates cardiovascular research, and operates national registries to measure and promote quality.

Media contacts:
Lisa Greene, USF Health Communications, University of South Florida, lgreene@health.usf.edu or (813) 974-4312
Stephanie Abraham, American College of Cardiology, sabraham@acc.org or (202) 375-6296

It started as a routine takeoff for US Airways Flight 1549.

But everything changed so fast.

Just after takeoff, Capt. Jeff Skiles, the plane’s co-pilot, caught a glimpse of movement and looked up.

“It was a big flock of geese, too close to maneuver around,” he said Friday, at the grand opening ceremonies for the USF Health Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation.

In an instant, birds were hitting the plane, and some were sucked into the engines.

Skiles just had time to think aboutstarting to assess the damage when the engines went quiet. All he heard was the sound of the wind.

“The shock of the situation made me feel as if my head had swollen,” he said. “I saw the world through a fog.”

But Skiles’ next actions had nothing to do with fog – and everything to do with training.

Capt. Jeffrey Skiles, the co-pilot of US Airways Flight 1549 "Miracle on the Hudson," was a featured speaker at the opening of the USF Health Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation.

Capt. Skiles grabbed his emergency procedures manual and flipped to the page for dual engine failure. Skiles began stepping through emergency procedures as his pilot, Capt. Chesley Sullenberger, took over flying the plane.

What happened is history. The pair landed the plane safely in the river. Every passenger on the plane survived. They became “the Miracle on the Hudson.”

But Capt. Skiles shrugs off such descriptions.

“Many people want to call me a hero or credit a miracle,” he said. “But this is not a story of individual achievement. This is a story of organizational change and safety awareness.”

And this is why Capt. Skiles was at CAMLS the day that it opened.

“We think that we can learn a lot from him,” said Dr. Stephen Klasko, dean of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. “Pilots know that practice and teamwork pay off in a crisis.”

CAMLS will collaborate with aviation safety experts to apply their lessons to the medical field, Dr. Klasko said. Those lessons include heavy use of simulators as learning tools and a focus on finding common errors and teaching how they can be corrected rather than blaming individuals for errors.

Skiles thinks CAMLS can teach those same lessons to health professionals.

“This is going to be an extremely valuable institution for the medical community,” he said.

“I’m here because of all the decades of developments in safety systems that allowed Sully and I to be successful in our moment of crisis,” Skiles said.

The Miracle on the Hudson is all about simulation and training and procedures that prepare pilots to handle the worst.

“Even in a moment of extreme stress and confusion, the training of decades came to the surface and we knew what to do,” Skiles said. “It was an event that we had practiced and prepared for our entire lives.”

The ultimate proof of that preparation:  Skiles and Sullenberger saved lives by working as a smoothly functioning team.

Even though they had just met that morning.

Capt. Skiles flips through his aviation emergency procedures manual while being interviewed by Lisa Greene of USF Health Communications.