Simulation Laboratory

For years, pilots have been trained and tested in realistic, full-scale aircraft simulators. Now, analogous technology is being used for medical education. The Department of Anesthesiology owns and operates a simulation laboratory for educational and research purposes. The simulator laboratory consists of a mock operating room with an adjacent control room and debriefing area. The mock operating room contains a state-of-the-art, full scale interactive human patient simulator designed by Medical Education Technologies, Inc. This computer-controlled, model driven mannequin is connected to conventional OR equipment, such as a Narkomed anesthesia machine and a Datex physiologic monitoring system. Actors play the roles of surgeons, nurses, technicians or other personnel. Training sessions are recorded by multiple built-in video cameras for subsequent debriefing sessions.

The simulator laboratory is used for all levels of anesthesia training, from an introduction to basic anesthesia concepts and skills to advanced crisis management. It is used to teach paramedics, medical students, anesthesia residents, and experienced anesthesiologists.

Simulator training sessions can include any of the following learning objectives:

Pharmacology - The simulator recognizes injected drugs and inhaled anesthetics, responding with appropriate cardiovascular, respiratory, and nervous system changes. This enables realistic demonstrations of specific drug effects, drug interactions, and the effects of varying pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics.

Physiology - The patient simulator incorporates respiratory and cardiovascular physiologic models. Internal factors, such as pulmonary compliance, cardiac contractility, and systemic vascular resistance, can be varied to dynamically demonstrate respiratory and cardiovascular physiologic principles.

Airway Management - The realistic and dynamic airway is used to teach routine intubation, as well as difficult airway management. The simulator can be programmed for a variety of different patient profiles with underlying pathologies or conditions. Students may or may not be apprised of all such conditions as they create and implement an anesthetic plan for a given surgery.

Monitoring - The patient simulator generates signals for a wide variety of invasive and noninvasive respiratory and cardiovascular monitors. Students are taught to interpret EKG waveforms, arterial pressure waveforms, capnometry, oximetry, and central venous waveforms.

Anesthetic Planning - The simulator can be programmed for a variety of different patient profiles with underlying pathologies or conditions. Students may or may not be apprised of all such conditions as they create and implement an anesthetic plan for a given surgery.

Crisis Management - Critical events can be triggered during a training session. The student can practice managing common critical events, such as respiratory arrest, and rare events, such as malignant hyperthermia. Subsequent debriefing sessions are used to review the subject's performance and suggest areas for improvement.

For additional information please contact:

Scott Morgan
(520) 626-5604
email: smorgan@u.arizona.edu

Robert (Butch) Loeb, MD
(520) 626-9106
email: rloeb@u.arizona.edu