Simulation Lab

Today was my first experience in the Sim Lab. I think I've mentioned it before... basically there's a room set up just like a hospital room with a dummy lying on the bed. The dummy has pulses, a bood pressure, breath and heart sounds, a peripheral IV, it can bleed, and the professor running the simulation can talk through it. SimLab is going to be really good, because in there we can do all the things that aren't allowed on real patients, like hang blood products, insert IV lines, etc.

This simulation was for Psych, so the situation we were given was of a woman going through alcohol withdrawal. It was based on the movie 28 Days about Sandra Bullock going through rehab. I have to admit, at first I thought it was the zombie movie, and was kind of wondering what sort of simulation we were going to be subjected to. We got to work in a group of three, which did help make things easier.

The simulation itself was nerve-wracking at first, but then just kind of fun. There is an assessment for patients suspected of going through alcohol withdrawal called the CIWA (Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment) and I was in charge of doing that, along with the CAGE questions to assess for alcohol addiction/dependence. (Have you ever wanted to Cut back on your alcohol intake? Do people seem Annoyed with you when you drink? Do you ever feel Guilty about drinking? Do you need an Eye-opener drink in the mornings?). She ended up scoring really high on the CIWA (hallucinations, dry heaves, sweating, loss of orientation) and got a nice valium drip going to calm her down. She was so happy about getting valium she even made up a little valium song for us (I think the instructor was having a little too much fun).

After the simulation was over we had to watch ourselves on video, which was by far the worst part. Then we were supposed to watch the rest of the movie, but we all just wanted to go home, including the instructor, so we left. In theory I could go check the DVD out from school and watch it any time. Not likely to happen.

I'm looking forward to future simulations, since they'll be done during our Adult Medical/Surgical course. They've already warned us that we'll be encountering a little bit of everything, so it should get very interesting.