mycrofft
Still crazy but elsewhere
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Simulators are tools. Be sure not to hire tools to run them.
ThaddeusJ, I am getting your vantage on this, but I feel it is mostly about testing and QA versus training.
An anecdote about a "simulator nazi" which may but probably does not support your approach:
My group of trained and experienced field EMT's were being trained by our company to become CPR instructors. The local Red Cross (this is 1981) used instrumented Resusci Annies as the objective sine qua non for passage of the class. The instructor had us perform CPR on these and walked up and down giving us "feedback".
We had all performed CPR under real conditions and in the ER's with the doctors present and other measures being done by ER staff without much comment.
None of us returned after the lunch break. A complete boycott.
The primary issue was that a real pt furnishes very different cues than a simulator does and the criteria measured (such as it was) by then manikin were "knife edge", fail or not, whereas in real practice they would have met the physiological requirements for most patients.
The secondary issue was that the operator has to be able (by personal inclination and by protocol) to use the simulator as an instrument and not an arbiter. None of this "I'm sorry, but the machine failed you". It's a tool not an authority. Getting caught doing something suboptimal when it is undeniable can be a very negative moment, or a learning and impactful moment. Even sort of joyous when a bunch of you all get to face palm at once, then try it again.
Finally, as we did in nursing college and sometimes with the collusion of the operators, we "learned the simulator" to cross that hurdle to graduation. Then you have to go out and relearn.
Sim operators ought to be experienced real world practitioners taking time off to teach.
ThaddeusJ, I am getting your vantage on this, but I feel it is mostly about testing and QA versus training.
An anecdote about a "simulator nazi" which may but probably does not support your approach:
My group of trained and experienced field EMT's were being trained by our company to become CPR instructors. The local Red Cross (this is 1981) used instrumented Resusci Annies as the objective sine qua non for passage of the class. The instructor had us perform CPR on these and walked up and down giving us "feedback".
We had all performed CPR under real conditions and in the ER's with the doctors present and other measures being done by ER staff without much comment.
None of us returned after the lunch break. A complete boycott.
The primary issue was that a real pt furnishes very different cues than a simulator does and the criteria measured (such as it was) by then manikin were "knife edge", fail or not, whereas in real practice they would have met the physiological requirements for most patients.
The secondary issue was that the operator has to be able (by personal inclination and by protocol) to use the simulator as an instrument and not an arbiter. None of this "I'm sorry, but the machine failed you". It's a tool not an authority. Getting caught doing something suboptimal when it is undeniable can be a very negative moment, or a learning and impactful moment. Even sort of joyous when a bunch of you all get to face palm at once, then try it again.
Finally, as we did in nursing college and sometimes with the collusion of the operators, we "learned the simulator" to cross that hurdle to graduation. Then you have to go out and relearn.
Sim operators ought to be experienced real world practitioners taking time off to teach.
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