No one likes being in hospital, but a small group of volunteer simulator patients are regulars at Ballarat Base Hospital giving medical students and staff a more realistic training experience.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The volunteers play the role of patients and must learn a script to recite, symptoms to display and behaviours to act in the training ward.
To ensure the scenario is as realistic as possible the volunteers are dressed in hospital gowns and lie in a hospital bed in what looks like an ordinary hospital ward.
The innovative volunteer simulator patient program has evolved from being just an idea two years ago to a fully-fledged training program involving Deakin University, University of Melbourne and Ballarat Health Services.
BHS hosts more than 22,000 clinical placement days a year, with the two universities alone having 80 to 120 medical students completing clinical placements each year. The hospital also uses volunteer simulator patients to train staff in different departments.
With just 16 trained and registered volunteers last year, about 45 different learning scenarios were scripted and acted.
Clinical skills educator Sue Garner said using a human simulator patient, in addition to high-tech medical mannequins, added an extra dimension to the training.
“The mannequins do everything but to have a real person in the bed makes such a difference,” she said.
“If it’s just a mannequin, we are teaching students initial basic skills but when you put a volunteer simulator patient in the bed, with a script to follow, the way the students engage becomes different.
“We are trying to get them to transition from the skills lab in to a ward environment.”
Ms Garner was quick to point out that the volunteer patients do not actually undergo any invasive medical procedures. For training such as inserting drips and use of needles, a simulator limb is used while the volunteer’s real limb is covered up to maintain appearances.
The patient simulators come from all walks of life, but with the program expanding there is a need for more volunteers to share the load.
“All of a sudden, nearly every new idea we have we think ‘you could put a volunteer simulator patient in that’,” Ms Garner said.
After completing training, volunteers are contacted by email when a scenario is scheduled and sent a script to be learned before coming in to the hospital, donning a gown and being a patient.
BHS is recruiting more volunteers for the program, and will run an information session on March 21 for anyone interested. For more information, or to register, call 5320 6931 or 5320 3789.
