New clinical simulation center reinforces education of students of Leiria

A Escola Superior de Saúde de Leiria (ESSLei) reinforced the Health Simulation Center (C2S) with new equipment, which allows training students in clinical scenarios with high-fidelity and immersive simulation.

Installed at the Center for Innovation in Technologies and Health Care (ciTechCare) of the University of Leiria and West, the C2S already existed, but its requalification, with the acquisition of new equipment, now allows to recreate clinical scenarios to train skills in the care of critical patients.

The coordinator of the C2S, Hugo Duarte, highlighted to the agency Lusa that this is an added value in the learning of the students of the various ESSLei courses, because “it will train them for urgent and emergency situations, at a stage prior to the internships”.

He said, “students can develop their technical and non-technical skills in C2S, for example, enhancing skills in the context of urgency and intensive care among nursing students”.

“The idea is to prepare them for ‘standard’ contexts they can find in their practice,” added the ESSLei subdirector.

During one of the practical classes of the 4th year of Nursing that the agency Lusa accompanied is heard ‘Stayin’ Alive’, music of the Bee Gees that is scientifically proven to have the ideal rhythm for heart compressions.

Beneath a dummy mannequin, some students try to reverse a cardiorespiratory arrest situation. Music helps them get the right rhythm in the maneuvers performed, they confessed in the end.

The vital signs presented on the monitors, as in a hospital, indicate the response of the ‘patient’: “The mannequin can emit sounds that reproduce vomiting, coughing, screaming and even answering simple questions,” Hugo Duarte revealed, who said that the whole scenario challenges students to make decisions, “potentializing their critical thinking and clinical reasoning.”.

In certain situations it may be necessary to “defibrillate, to get the heart working again, administer medication or ventilate using an inflator or mechanical ventilator”, he exemplified, noting that the context may change according to the information the teacher gives to the simulator.

The C2S is equipped with defibrillator monitors, multiparameter monitors, infuser pumps, infuser syringes, an ecograph, a ventilator, a videolaryngoscope, among others, which contribute to exercise in the face of heart or lung problems.

In addition to resuscitation maneuvers, students can train the administration of therapy, endotracheal intubation and the use of equipment similar to those found in health institutions.

Hugo Duarte noted that technical skills are not the only focus of preparing students for their profession: “To be a professional of excellence, it is not enough just to know how to do the technique. You need to have good team communication, know how to lead in a given scenario, manage anxiety and enhance critical thinking for your decision making.”.

The space is also equipped with 360o speakers, sound and video cameras, which allow recording student practices for a ‘debriefing’ ‘a posteriori’ of developed scenarios.

The acquisition of the new equipment, in an investment of about €65 thousand, financed by the Recovery and Resilience Plan, does not serve only students. The C2S is accredited as a training center of the National Institute of Medical Emergency for the basic life support course with external automatic defibrillation.

In parallel, a research project is being developed in partnership with the Local Health Unit of the Leiria Region.

“ We will place high-fidelity simulators in the emergency room of the hospital’s General Emergency Service, creating an in-situ simulation environment to train technical and non-technical skills in health professionals.”.