Hospital simulation emphasizes teamwork, collaboration

Two labs at the Helen Glass Centre for Nursing on the Fort Garry Campus were transformed Feb. 2 into a simulated hospital for Interprofessional Education (IPE) Day Shift, an annual event that gives students in health-related fields the opportunity to play the role of both caregiver and patient in a hospital setting.

The workshop, which simulates a seven-hour hospital workday, brought together 65 students from the Max Rady College of Medicine and the Colleges of Nursing, Pharmacy and Rehabilitation Sciences. The day gave students the chance to understand the patient experience, practice skills in a safe environment and gain experience required for interdisciplinary teamwork.

Barb Goodwin, College of Nursing instructor and director of skills and simulation education, has been involved with IPE Day Shift since its inception seven years ago. She said the event is a great opportunity for students to use the knowledge gained in their own health-care programs, but also see what students in other disciplines have learned and what their roles bring to a hospital setting.

“When students come together as a team, they communicate with each other and share what they know about the patient. As an inter-professional group, students see that they know a huge amount of information about patient care, and that we all have the same goal, which is improving the patient’s health and well-being,” she said.

Lisa Diamond-Burchuk, instructor in the department of occupational therapy at the College of Rehabilitation Sciences, said her students find the day valuable because they can learn and educate others at the same time.

“It’s kind of a double-bang value, because they get to learn from the other professions – what their roles would be and what it’s like in an inpatient unit. But on the other hand, they’re getting a chance to display to the other interdisciplinary team members what their role is,” she said.

Frances Hernandez, a second-year nursing student, took part as a patient and said she looks forward to stepping into the caregiver role next year.

“It really emphasizes teamwork, communication and collaboration,” she said, adding that the patient perspective was also valuable to learn. “I’m going to be starting my clinicals at the end of February, so it’s great that I get to feel what it’s like being a patient. When they were doing rounds and it was taking a while, that made me think about what my patients might feel.”

Fourth-year nursing student Karlo Cemania played the role of patient and nurse over the last two years and found the experience so beneficial that he became one of the organizers this time around.

“I was in my third year, first semester of nursing last year when I participated in this event as a nurse, and I had no hospital experience at the time, so even going through the patient’s chart was something new and I felt a bit overwhelmed at first,” Cemania said. “Luckily this was the perfect setting to step out of my comfort zone because all the faculty members from different health-care professions were very kind and eager to help students if they had any questions or needed any clarifications.”

ALAN MACKENZIE