By Jay Barrueta, AAS, CST
Creativity and hands-on learning are a necessity for keeping students engaged, but what other solutions can instructors use to put our creative energy to better use and provide students the best preparation for surgery? Our program has started using Mock Medical drop-ins, trainers, and laparoscopic tower to give students a realistic surgical simulation experience that is cost effective for our campus. As instructors, we can now focus on teaching rather than creating our own simulation devices.
We use the breast model with lumps to acclimate the students to minor surgical procedures. From there we build more advanced skills using the gallbladder and appendix drop-ins. Using both drop-ins give the students and instructors a wide variety of surgical procedures practice. For example, the gallbladder drop-in allows us to demonstrate a cholecystectomy, liver biopsy, exploratory laparotomy, and even a bowel resection with colostomy!
