UAMS Simulation Instructors Draw a Crowd in India

By David Robinson

Dec. 12, 2011 | When UAMS staff arrived in Hyderabad, India, to teach nursing students and faculty how to train with manikins that simulate patient responses, they expected more than 100 to attend.

Michael Manley and Mary Cantrell pose with students and faculty in Hyderabad.

Michael Manley and Mary Cantrell pose with students and faculty in Hyderabad.

School of Medical Sciences.

“The students really showed us how much this means to them,” said Cantrell, executive director of the UAMS Simulation Center. “They were

great learners.”

The visit to Hyderabad follows a memorandum of understanding signed by the two institutions and a February visit to UAMS by Geeta K. Vemuganti, M.D., dean of the University of Hyderabad School of Medical Sciences. During her two-day visit, in which she gathered ideas to take back, Vemuganti said the Simulation Center stood out.

“Your clinical skills center and simulation lab are amazing,” Vemuganti said at the time. “These are two things that are entirely different from what I’ve seen, whether at national or

UAMS' Michael Manley (right) helped nursing students in Hyderabad, India learn how to train on a manikin.

UAMS’ Michael Manley (right) helped nursing students in Hyderabad, India learn how to train on a manikin.

international institutions.”

At Vemuganti’s invitation, UAMS sent Cantrell, Eswaran and Manley, who is director of the Simulation Center.

The cost for the trip was shared by the UAMS Center for Distance Health and the University of Hyderabad School of Medical Sciences, said Eswaran, the UAMS coordinator of the memorandum of understanding. Eswaran, an India native, is guiding and assisting with the establishment of collaborative contacts and also working to identify Indo-U.S. funding sources for faculty/student exchanges and workshops and seminars.

Eswaran is an associate professor and the SARA Lab director in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the College of Medicine. He also is the international telemedicine coordinator for the Center for Distance Health.

“Dean Vemuganti said she wanted to start with something small, and she thought this exchange would be appropriate,” Eswaran said.

The Hyderabad School of Medical Sciences has an integrated master’s program in nursing, and it is working toward building a full-fledged medical school. Since there is no hospital on campus, the students train in other hospitals in the city, but access is limited. Having manikins to train with goes a long way toward bridging the learning gap.

The Laerdal Medical Corp. loaned the UAMS group a Sim Man 3G, one of their high-fidelity manikins. The simulator allowed the students to check the manikin’s pulse, perform intravenous therapies (IVs), chest compressions and tracheal intubations. The company also gave the University of Hyderabad a birthing simulator and a neonate simulator, enabling students to learn such things as how to cut the umbilical cord and check breathing.

After the workshop concluded, the group visited Fernandez Hospital in Hyderabad, where more than 10,000 babies are delivered each year.

Eswaran said the goal is to increase the number of exchanges because each institution can learn from the other.

“Our medical students or nursing students would have an intensive learning experience in Hyderabad because of the sheer number of births, and they would see how health care is achieved even with limited resources,” Eswaran said.

Also on his list is to have one of the Hyderabad nursing faculty members visit UAMS.

In the meantime, Vemuganti is planning a return trip to UAMS in January to discuss potential research collaborations with UAMS’ Michael Jennings, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics in the Graduate School.