The 'new' classroom: TTUHSC using simulations, new technology to teach nurses, doctors

When it comes to training future nurses, doctors and medical professionals, only so much can be taught in a classroom setting.

With the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) Simulation Program being reaccredited, the university is proving once more how it's at the forefront of teaching future medical professionals and how it's different from other medical universities.

"When students choose to attend TTUHSC, they're coming into an environment where we really desire to train people using the best evidence and the best type of learning environment. That does not look like a PowerPoint and lecture anymore," said Kyle Johnson, Clinical and Simulation director at TTUHSC. "Learners are put into situations so that when they get into practice, they've developed a toolkit of things that they had an opportunity to practice in a simulated setting that was safe — for them to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes."

According to TTUHSC, the Simulation Program, which houses centers in Lubbock, Abilene, Amarillo, Dallas, Mansfield, Midland, and Odessa, was reaccredited by the Teaching/Education and Assessment by the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, the largest healthcare simulation accrediting body in the world, back in late February.

Through the reaccreditation, TTUHSC is only one of 24 programs to achieve accreditation as a multisite institution — a distinction achieved by only 10% of programs globally.

"This really says to the community of learners that are trying to get professional training to be a healthcare professional that wherever you choose to attend TTUHSC, you're going to receive quality simulation training," said Johnson.

The impact of having the lab at the university cannot be understated, and it is vital to student education, according to several Lubbock TTUHSC students.

TTUHSC using simulation training to train medical professionals

In 2009, the Texas Tech System Board of Regents made a multimillion-dollar investment into the simulation training program at TTUHSC, creating the Marie F. Hall SimLife Center at the Lubbock campus.

Through this investment, Johnson said students can practice from listening and assessing patients to practicing on medical dummies how to start an IV or how to deliver a child.

One of those students was first-year medical student Hayden Meeks. Demonstrating in one of the several mock medical clinic examination rooms, Meeks said students are allowed to work with live actors to practice patient manners, physical exams and ultrasounds, among other various exams.

However, cameras and microphones are situated in every situation room.

"When you're doing your encounter with your patient, they'll record it, and then they upload it," Meeks said. "You can rewatch your video later — it's all about learning."

Before being accepted into medical school, Meeks said he used to help out at the SimLife Center, where he would prep the various rooms — such as the patient hospital rooms, exam rooms, the surgery suite, the birthing suite and many more — with IV's, fake medications and other equipment that medical and nursing students might have needed to practice certain skills after learning them in a classroom setting.

In the hospital patient simulation room, as nursing students practiced listening to lungs and heart sounds, Meeks, along with other center staff, were behind a two-way glass controlling the medical dummy's eye movements, what it was saying down and deciding if the right atrium in the heart had a murmur or not.

The center also boasts an Anatomage Table — a table-sized tablet that allows students to explore various human anatomy in 3D without the need to use cadavers or organs.

For some, like Chloe Douglas, an Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing student, the SimLife Center is an opportunity to practice the basic skills without the fancy equipment.

"I think it's really interesting that we are very technologically advanced at all the health sciences centers across America, just because the internet just transformed everything. But what we forget is that sometimes we rely too much on it," Douglas said. "Sometimes even computers make mistakes."

She said learning how to take manual vitals and do medical calculations is still vital in rural areas or in cases of natural disasters — all things TTUHSC students can practice at the SimLife Center.

Several nursing students recounted that the SimLife Center was a safe space for them to make mistakes, learn from them without disastrous consequences, and grow, with some coining the term "What happens in SimLife, Stays in SimLife."

With the future of healthcare changing daily with the introduction of newer technologies and programs like artificial intelligence and virtual reality, Johnson said SimLife will offer students a chance to work and learn those technologies; however, he said he has a clear vision for what is next for the center.

"I imagine that we will do more and more and more interprofessional types of trainings, because it is very rare that when a patient interacts with the healthcare system, that they're dealing with one discipline," Johnson said, "how teams can better enact patient healthcare."

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: TTUHSC using simulations, technology to teach future healthcare workers