Medical students partake in disaster simulation

(WDBJ)
Published: Apr. 12, 2019 at 5:00 PM EDT
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Local medical students participated in a disaster simulation at the Carilion Clinic Simulation Center, responding and treating people acting like patients.

Aly Metz stepped out of the classroom and into Carilion's Simulation Center to treat a person trained to act like a patient.

"It's always great to be able to see people and it's a lot better with a real patient instead of a mannequin because you get that person to person interaction and they actually display what you're seeing on the case," Metz, a Radford University Physical Therapy student, said.

Metz joined other students from the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Jefferson College of Health Sciences. Metz, a physical therapy student, found it helpful to work with students from other health professions.

"It was a really great opportunity, we get to see what all the different programs here in Roanoke do and how we can work best together to serve our patients in the area," Metz said.

The simulation was put on to test students on how they can work with others.

"We're making a deliberate attempt to educate our students on how they communicate and collaborate with other professionals outside of their own, when they're in a clinical setting," Kimberly Whiter, Director of Interprofessional Education at Jefferson College of Health Sciences, said.

"It was difficult, I mean it's certainly hard to go in there with a team you don't know, people you haven't met before," Malek Bouzaher, a student at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, said. "And try and kind of work something out to make sure that the person in front of you is being adequately cared for and we don't miss something."

This is the first time this simulation took place at the center. Students got to work in the Trauma and Operating Rooms while supervisors watched them and critiqued their work.