June 4, 2004

For more information, contact: Kimberly Stark at (901) 333-4023

SIMMAN HEIGHTENS TRAINING FOR SOUTHWEST’S EMT STUDENTS

Beginning this fall, Southwest’s Emergency Medical Technology program will incorporate two new “trainers” into its curriculum. The “trainers” are the Laderal SimMan manikins. These breathing, speaking “trainers” are full-body manikins and are as close to a real human patient as a simulator can be.

“Treatments performed on SimMan by the students determine if SimMan lives or dies,” said Gerald Foon, Associate Professor for the Emergency Medical Technology program at Southwest. “Nuclear, chemical and biological exposure emergencies can also be simulated for EMT's and paramedics. SimMan provides the opportunity to practice life-saving clinical, technical and decision-making skills without risk to patients or the students.”

SimMan actually breaths and speaks to the students. Heart, breath, bowel sounds and pulses can be felt. Advanced features include monitoring EKG, oxygen saturation, temperature, central venous pressures, arterial blood pressures, inspired and end tidal respiratory gases. SimMan has a unique patented airway that allows for intubations and multiple Advanced Life Support skills. Some of the Advanced Life Support skills which can be performed are defibrillation, external cardiac pacing, treatment of tension pneumothorax and emergency needle cricothyrotomy.

While patient simulators have been available for some time, their price and maintenance requirements made them cost prohibitive. Other manikins have been used in the EMT program for years, however, they only allowed students to simulate one form of training such as advanced airway treatments or simulated heart treatments. These individual manikins were designed for a specific purpose and learning objective. It made it hard to provide a simulation of a human patient and have it seem real. Aircraft pilots, nuclear power plant operators and military personnel all train in simulators which respond exactly like the real thing. Southwest’s students are now able to be trained at the same highly technical level as those industries.

SimMan is being used at locations around Memphis, like Southwest, to train medical personnel. Foon recently completed training and certification for the SimMan trainer in Gatesville, Texas taught by the manufacture Laderal Texas. To learn more about Southwest’s Emergency Medical Technology program, call Gerald Foon at (901) 333-5412.