Vital role for simulation education in WA regions

Over the past 10 years Dr Claire McTernan has grown quite attached to 3G SIM man, a well-travelled high fidelity mannequin that she and several other anaesthetists and anaesthetic technicians in Western Australia use for simulation education in emergency airway skills management (EAM).

SIM man is key to the lectures and workshops that Dr McTernan, a consultant anaesthetist at Fiona Stanley Hospital in Perth helps roll out to remote and rural hospitals in WA as part of a team that is funded by the Federal Department of Health.

As one of the clinical leads for the Medical Specialists Outreach Assistance Programme (MSOAP), Dr McTernan works closely with the co-ordinator, anaesthetist Dr Christine Grobler from Royal Perth Hospital and lead anaesthesia technicians Janice Haydon and Selvan Govindhan-Vairavan to ensure that hospitals in regional and remote areas such as Kununurra near the Northern Territory border, Albany to the south, Merredin to the east and Geraldton to the north, have access to the team’s simulation and clinical expertise.

Dr McTernan explained the logistics of each visit: “The team either flies or drives depending on the distance from Perth. Once the team arrives, it’s straight to the hospital. We first meet with the nurse manager to choose the areas we can setup for our lectures and workshops. We also go through their difficult airway trolley, their crisis trolley with anaphylaxis and their malignant hypothermia (MH) and local anaesthetic systemic toxicity (LAST) boxes and make sure they are standardised.

“We look at local protocol for calling for help and how to get blood etcetera. We also find out about any big code blues (such as trauma, airway bleeding,

“The program started about 15 years ago with the aim of providing airway crisis management education for both adult and paediatrics,” Dr McTernan said.

“Learning is facilitated through lectures, workshops and simulated scenarios for up to 20 people (usually emergency department GPs, GP anaesthetists, theatre and emergency nurses and the odd medical student thrown in!)”.

The team is planning three visits this year (half the number of annual funded visits from when the program started as an initiative with the WA Centre for Remote and Rural Medicine and Dr Leigh Coombs, the then head of anaesthesia at Royal Perth Hospital). It runs as a joint program between Fiona Stanley Hospital, Royal Perth Hospital and Perth Children’s Hospital.

Dr McTernan said the feedback from participants was extremely positive as the sessions were not only informative and realistic but also gave the participants a chance to debrief difficult cases.

All the clinical leads involved in the program hold a fellowship in simulated medicine and are experienced in adult debriefing.

*The EAM team would like to acknowledge and thank lead anaesthetic technician Janice Haydon for all her hard work with the program over the past 15 years. They’re looking forward to working with her successor Selvan Govindhan-Vairavan.

Carolyn Jones Media Manager, ANZCA