Simulation Training

Preparing Medical Personnel to Respond to Mass Casualty Events using Simulation-Enhanced Team Training

 

Project Director/Lead Investigator:  M. Margaret Knudson, MD

   

Hypothesis:

 

The overall hypothesis for this study is that the simulation-enhanced disaster curriculum that we design will prove to be a valid method for training surgical teams to respond to mass casualty situations resulting from either intentional or natural causes and might be used in the future to assess competency in the core surgical skills needed to provide treatment for injuries sustained in these situations.

sim2.jpg
 

Aims:  

  1. To develop a scenario-based, simulation-enhanced curriculum that addresses five major areas of injury likely to be encountered in mass casualty/disaster or combat situations.

  2. To develop an assessment tool specifically designed to evaluate performance during the simulated sessions unique to this curriculum

  3. To train novice TEAMS at two institutions using the disaster curriculum

  4. To train judges to use the assessment tool in evaluating pre and post tests of the TEAMS being trained

  5. To test the construct validity of the assessment tool in its ability to distinguish expert from novice performance

  6. To evaluate the design of the curriculum for both its educational value, and face validity

  7. To evaluate the content validity of the curriculum using the expert teams and novice teams subsequently deployed.

Brief Summary of Project:

 

Currently, at San Francisco General Hospital, we have an ongoing simulation-enhanced trauma curriculum to prepare surgical residents for their role in managing critically injured patients. Along with the curriculum, we have also previously developed a structured measuring tool to assess both technical skills and crisis management skills of our residents. We plan to use our existing curriculum and assessment tool as models to develop a scenario-based, simulation-enhanced curriculum that will prepare surgeons for their role in managing the injuries in disaster/mass casualty or situations. This new curriculum will include the following critical steps: 1. the selection of lessons to be learned and the development of simulation-based scenarios to teach them; 2. the development of a tool for assessing student performance during the teaching and testing scenarios; 3. training judges to use the assessment tool and demonstrate a high correlation between their scores; 4. validation of the curriculum for both face validity and content; and 5. validation of the assessment tool for its ability to distinguish between experienced versus novice learners. These critical steps will be performed in parallel at two institutions: the University of California, San Francisco; and the National Capital Area Medical Simulation Center at the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland. The final curriculum will then be critically evaluated by surgeons (both military and civilian) with disaster experience. Once validated, the goal is to add this simulation-embedded disaster/mass casualty curriculum to the American College of Surgeons’ Committee on Trauma Disaster Course and have it serve as a standard training/testing module for surgeons wishing to volunteer during natural disasters or for military surgeons who are deployed to combat areas and who must demonstrate that they are competent to manage the complex injuries likely to be encountered in these situations.