Medical simulation

Medical simulation is a branch of simulation technology related to education and training in medical fields of various industries. It can involve simulated human patients, educational documents with detailed simulated animations, casualty assessment in homeland security and military situations, and emergency response. Its main purpose is to train medical professionals to reduce accidents during surgery, prescription, and general practice. However it is now used to train students in anatomy and physiology during their clinical training as allied health professionals. These professions include nursing, sonography, pharmacy assistants and physical therapy. Advances in technology are advancing geometrically and a McGraw Hill textbook, Medical Simulation, by VanCura and Bisset interfaces the simulator technology with any medically related course of study.

Many medical professionals are skeptical about simulation, saying that medicine, surgery, and general healing skills are too complex to simulate accurately. But technological advances in the past two decades have made it possible to simulate practices from yearly family doctor visits to complex operations such as heart surgery.

An increase in recent emergency and military scenario simulation has helped medical providers in Middle East war zones.

Disaster response is made easier and conducted by better trained individuals due to the rapid availability of simulators in schools, hospitals, military facilities, and research labs.

The first uses of medical simulation can be traced back to anesthesia physicians in order to reduce accidents. When simulation skyrocketed in popularity during the 1930s due to the invention of the Link Trainer for flight and military applications, many different field experts attempted to adapt simulation to their own needs. Due to limitations in technology and overall medical knowledge to a specific degree at the time, medical simulation did not take off as acceptable training until much later. When the sheer cost effectiveness and training of which simulation was capable surfaced during extensive military use, hardware/software technology increased exponentially, and medical standards were established, medical simulation became entirely possible, affordable, standardized, and accepted.

By the 1980s software simulations became available. With the help of a UCSD School of Medicine student, Computer Gaming World reported that Surgeon (1986) for the Apple Macintosh very accurately simulated operating on an aortic aneurysm. Others followed, such as Life & Death (1988).

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