ALMOST REAL, THE SIMMAN IS A VIRTUAL PATIENT FOR CHENNAI’S MEDICAL STUDENTS TO WORK ON

Being inside an emergency room, watching a group of doctors pump life back into a man who has suffered a massive cardiac arrest can be disturbing. The atmosphere is tense, and there in intense pressure on the ram that is doing everything it can to resuscitate the patient’s breathing. In a matter of minutes, though, things settle down, and the doctors heave a sigh of relief. This, despite the fact that the patient sprawled in the bed is actually a mannequin. But hey ‘ SimMan™ , as the patient is called, looks unnervingly real. A tall, well-built man (or woman, the genitals can be changed) , the virtual patient can be simulated to perform “actual patient care scenarios” that help students hone their life-saving skills.

• SimMan™ is a virtual patient whose gender can be changed as and when required. It has a realistic anatomy.
  
• SimMan™ is used for simulation-based education, the closet one can get to real life. It helps to challenge and test the doctors’ clinical and decision –making skills in realistic scenarios.
  
• The mannequin allows learners to practice a wide range of emergency medical interventions along with crisis resource management, teamwork, leadership and communications skills.
  
• Most importantly , it allows students to make, and get away with, the most dangerous mistakes since the worst possible outcome would be to restart the SimMan™ program.

A rare commodity in the theoretical world of Indian medicine where students learn literally  job, it’s no surprise that SimMan™ (who hails from Norway) is enjoying celebrity status at The Academy for Clinical Training (TACT) at Anna Nagar, which is part of Utopian Healthcare Private Limited. “Simulated training ensures crisis management skills and improves your ability to work as a team, especially during crucial moments, “says Dr. Ramakrishnan, director of Apollo Hospitals” Critical Care Services who started Utopian Healthcare in 2003.

Set up earlier this year, TACT offers students an interactive environment in which to hone their skills. :It’s about training lives to save lives,” says Ramakrishnan., who designed the curriculum to include life support for public and healthcare workers, paediatric advanced life support and airway workshops.

At TACT, trainees are expected to handle complex situations that challenge their intellect and foster their ability to act on their feet.  Ramakrishnan and this team of doctors – Babu K. Abraham, Ramesh Venkataraman and Akila Janardhanan- work hard at ensuring this. For instance , they monitor and control SimMan’s responses from the control room even as a trainee doctor is working on him.  “While training a doctor, I can get SimMan™ to shut his vocal chords, almost like a human being, so incubating a patient becomes harder and the doctor has no choice but to figure a new ways out of the situation ,” says Ramakrishanan.

Ask Deepak Vedumurthy, who graduated from Madras Medical College, Chennai last year , about his experience with SimMan and he says, “It’s awesome to be able to get responses for your specific performances without causing any harm to the patient.” Having attended advanced cardiac life support courses across hospitals in the city, Vedamurthy says his experience at TACT were “both fruitful and fascinating”. Bundled with educative value, will SimMan now make his way into other medical schools as well? Let’s wait and watch.

 - By Akhila Krishnamurthy