Simulation in Healthcare Week wraps up with food trucks at SMHS

The Simulation Center at the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences celebrated Simulation in Healthcare Week 2022 with a series of events Sept. 12-16, including an open house of its state-of-the-art medical simulation facility on the UND campus.

The largest and most active center of its kind in North Dakota, the SMHS Simulation Center is a hands-on simulation training facility for multidisciplinary healthcare providers. The high-fidelity space provides learners with two unique medical settings: a clinical setting, where students train with standardized human patients who have been trained in the art of behaving and responding like a medical patient; and a hospital setting where students explore hospital- or emergency room- based scenarios (such as childbirth or intensive care) with robotic “manikins” replacing human patients.

The final event of the week will be held today:

Friday, Sept. 16

12 p.m. – 3 p.m. |  UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences

• Simulation Center Tours
• Simulation in Motion – North Dakota Mobile sim truck open house (north side of SMHS building)
• Area food trucks, featuring the vendors The Wok and Black Widow

“Simulation is a powerful learning tool, and we get our first-year medical students, physician assistant students, and physical and occupational therapy students into the Simulation Center almost immediately,” said SMHS Simulation Center Director Dr. Jon Allen, noting that the Center’s manikins are remarkably life-like in that they can talk, cry, breathe, and bleed. “This training prepares students to work with actual human patients once they reach the clinical phase of their training. We hear from many of our medical grads that when they enter a residency they’re often ahead of their peers in hands-on medical training. That’s thanks in part to this Center.”

Healthcare Simulation Week, sponsored by the Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH), celebrates professionals who use healthcare simulation to improve the safety, effectiveness, and efficiency of healthcare delivery. New methods and technologies are emerging that present opportunities to improve patient care.

“Healthcare simulation continues to grow at an extraordinary rate,” added SSH President Bob Armstrong. “An increasing number of professionals in the healthcare industry are waking up to simulation’s ability to help individuals and organizations improve patient care, which is so great to witness. We want to celebrate both that increased role and all healthcare simulation professionals this week.”