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| LISA MARIE MILLER | DISPATCH |
| Dr. Jason Winterhalter, right, places a tube in the mouth of a patient simulator with the help of Drs. Edward Bope, left, and Shawn Howerton. Six of the simulators will be in use at Riverside’s teaching hospital. |
"Don’t call it a dummy," Matthew Dubil said.
He was right — his high-tech medical mannequin stretched out on a nearby table at Riverside Methodist Hospital is not dumb.
In fact, it can tell you where it hurts as well as nearly any patient.
Riverside purchased six mannequins — four adults, a child and an infant — from Dubil’s company, Medical Education Technologies. They will be the talent in a new 20,000-square-foot, $3 million virtual teaching hospital.
When it opens in the spring, it will be the first virtual hospital outside the military. It will have an operating room, an intensive-care unit, treatment areas, a microvascular lab, laparoscopy labs and a cardiology simulator.
The space, on the fourth floor of Riverside’s McConnell Heart Hospital, is empty for now, so most of the attention from doctors, nurses and medical resi- dents at an open house yesterday was focused on the patient simulators.
Dubil answered questions and demonstrated while Dr. Emily Brawner and several others checked out the "patients."
Brawner inserted a breathing tube without breaking the patient’s teeth.
Another doctor wasn’t so lucky.
But that’s what the simulators are for, Dubil said — to make mistakes and perfect a procedure before you work with a human.
Ben Stobbe, a registered nurse and trauma-program manager, still remembers the first time he treated a patient, 17 years ago.
"I was scared to death," he said.
The mannequin’s urethanesilicon skin conceals a collection of wires and devices that let the mannequin breathe, have a pulse and a heartbeat, cry, blink, bleed and react to drugs. Its eyes even react to light.
It even pees.
And a quick change turns a he into she.
Brawner, a resident, is one of a team of physicians who respond during a hospital emergency. All she usually knows is that the patient isn’t breathing.
"It’s life and death," said Dr. Vipin Koshal, another resident.
The simulator is the civilian offshoot of a $20 million Defense Department program to create a virtual patient to train medical personnel.
Medical Education Technologies rolled out its first simulator in 1996 and unveils a new model every couple of years. The upscale models cost about $190,000.
Columbus State Community College bought one in 2000.
The mannequins can suffer everything from a heart attack to amputation and show all the signs and symptoms of whatever ails them thanks to computer software that controls 70,000 programmable physiological changes.
Their conditions will be controlled from another room where trainers can throw curves at the doctors and nurses with a couple of keystrokes.
Pamela Boyers, director of medical education, said the mannequins can be used to try out new surgical techniques and treatments before they are used on real patients.
Riverside’s center will also feature heart catheterization simulators.
"It boggles your mind," said Dr. Edward Bope, director of the Riverside family practice residency program. "We will be able to practice procedures over and over before ever laying hands on a patient."
mlafferty@dispatch.com