Does anyone have some helpfull tips on how to bring the Manikin into EMT Training? I am trying to give my students well rounded education and feel this is a step in the right direction, but stuck on how to impliment it.

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Joe McConomy, MICP
Sr. EMT Instructor
Burlington County ESTC

Hi Joe,

The great thing about the RA Sim is the lack of cables therefore you can run your scenarios any where, I am not sure as to what training level your EMT trainees go up to but we use the RA Sim for both ALS and ILS scenarios and there is nothing stopping you from extending this to trauma. management. Recently I attended a Simulation users meeting hosted in the UK by Laerdal, there was a great session on the use of casualty make up and the different kind of injurys that you can produced with a small amount of time expence and effort. The hardest part for me is finding the time.

Hope this helps

Steve

hey there Joe,

 I too am trying to get SimMan and SimBaby into the hands of emt's... the biggest trouble I'm having seems to be in getting emt's to want to play with the simulators... we have both the latest simman and baby, and an ambulance equiped with the advanced AVS, and all the gear you would ever need to run a call, but I'm finding it tough to get folks to want to train with it... that being said, I'm trying to get started with all this gear myself... we bought all kinds of the extras that go with the sim's trauma/chemical warfare/ portability...etc.. and have been taking lots of sim-training.... but getting this thing into the hands of folks has been slow... we are a "mom & pop" outfit, and I built this in my back garage, I'm still looking for docs, hospitals, schools, and squads in the northeast U.S. to work with me  .... one thing I have been doing is "dumbing down" some of the pre-written scenarios to the ems level, but am also trying to design my own along with some trends and handlers.... moulage tips... you can use washable markers on the skin, and it comes off pretty easy, the other thing I'm trying to do is keep it as real as I can, with a fully stocked rig, a patient in real street clothes, shoes, jewelery... the closer to real, the better.... I would like to see us ems folks try to develop a little subdivision in SUN someday, I've attended a few sun conferences so far, but ems is a small  but growing portion of sim users....  keep the faith, be safe... ralph j. genella

 

 

 

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Ralph J. Genella EMT-I
Green Ambulance Simulator
website: www.greenambulancesimulator.com

We have just hired a Nurse/EMT to create training for local EMTs, whether they be municipal or private. The local Firemedics can't wait to begin using simulation, so we're glad of that.  Do you have any tips for him on moving simulation into EMT training?  I just showed him how to build scenarios yesterday and we did a mini practice one, but if you have one you could put a couple on the Downloads page that would likely move us more rapidly in the right direction. 

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Barbara K. Ratliff RN, BSN, MBA
Baptist Health Montgomery, AL
Institute of Patient Safety
and Medical Simulation
Simulation Specialist

Barbara,

Does your facility have the battery and compressor backpack for SimMan?  We got that for our travels and it is great other than being on the heavy side and finding a tank to fit.  We finally got a tank from a welding supply company and use CO2 which is just fine and doesn't cause any problems. That way we can also use the tank for the CO2 hookup in the lab if needed for other scenarios. 

One of the ways we are using this is to have the laptop closed and in the backpack so that everything is contained in one place.  You run the manikin with the PDA and use a Bluetooth mic if you want and voice or just use voice bites that you pre-record.

The EMS people deal with the manikin and one of our support staff deals with the backpack, placing it under the stretcher or on just carrying it to the ambulance.  That way they aren't dealing with the cables or anything and don't really seem to notice them as much.  Our support person is dressed in dark clothes to blend into the scenery and just steps back when not needed.  This has been OK so far and we are working on getting better with it.

I will check to see if I can post any of our EMS stuff yet.  We still have some bugs but it is better.

Dani