Practice Makes Perfect
Risk-Free Medical Training With Patient Simulators
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
- KEYWORDS:
- education, medical
- patient simulation
Boston—As surgical resident Atul Gawande, MD, points out in his essay, "Education of a Knife," included in Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science, medicine has long faced a conflict between "the imperative to give patients the best possible care and the need to provide novices with experience." Although strict supervisory provisions and graduated stages of responsibility are set up to provide guidance for physicians and protection for patients, at some point every physician must solo for the first time.
One way to reduce the risk of error inherent in medical training, said Jeffrey Cooper, PhD, director of the Center for Medical Simulation in Boston, is to use patient simulators—life-size, computer-driven mannequins that talk, breathe, move, and mimic physiological changes—to set up clinical scenarios in which medical personnel can hone their skills. "My vision of the future, which is probably still 5 years away," he said, "is for …
