Students Get Hands-On at Bryan Sim Center

Casting, intubating and delivering a baby?  All in a day’s work for these students.

(BRYAN, TX)—On Friday, October, 15, 30 Texas A&M Health Science Center (TAMHSC) College of Medicine second-year students participated in a specially designed workshop in the Simulation Center at the TAMHSC Bryan Campus.  The students, part of the TAMHSC-College of Medicine’s Family Medicine Interest Group, rotated through the workshop’s four stations—casting and splinting; intubation; ultrasound; and labor and delivery—under the supervision of residents and faculty members.

As Coordinator of the Family Medicine Interest Group, second-year student Ross Pinson said that the workshop provided a unique opportunity to gather and learn with the Simulation Center’s technology.

“As students interested in someday practicing family medicine, this workshop allowed us to come together and train on different types of equipment through a variety of exercises,” he said.  “We appreciate that the residents gave us some early, hands-on procedural training and that we got to utilize the excellent facilities.  It’s always nice to get out of the classroom in the first two years of medical school for some hands-on training.”

The 33,000-square foot Simulation Center is home to 15 clinical exam rooms, eight multi-functional simulation rooms, two fundamental skills rooms and multiple clinical testing areas.  The students use different types of manikins (called low- and high-fidelity) to practice evaluating, diagnosing and treating the human body.  Interest groups within the College of Medicine organize Sim Center workshops like this once or twice a semester for students.

“The Sim Center is a great place to train,” said Kory Gill, D.O., Assistant Professor of Family & Community Medicine.  “There are large rooms that provide space for exercises like casting and splinting, and there are smaller exam rooms that really allow the students to experience a clinical setting.”

After learning how to apply casts and splints to each others’ arms, the students then practiced intubating by placing a special breathing tube in a manikin’s windpipe.  At the ultrasound station, students practiced using a portable ultrasound machine to examine one student’s neck, in particular the carotid artery.  They also practiced an obstetric ultrasound on a volunteer called a “standardized patient.”

Finally the students stepped up to practice delivering a baby with “Noelle,” the Sim Center’s high-fidelity labor and delivery manikin, under the guidance of Dr. David McClellan, Director of the Family Medicine Residency Program and Assistant Professor of Family & Community Medicine.

Through it all, the students remained excited and enthusiastic about their future careers.