Operating Room Teaching

Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine (RVU) in Parker, Colorado conducted its annual Intensive Surgical Skills Course (ISSC) at Strategic Operations' U.S. Navy designated Simulated Ambulant Lab the week of 4-9 May 2014. Overhead catwalks and video camera systems enabled live viewing and after action review. Thirty-nine live-action, Hyper-Realistic™ simulations of both medical and surgical problems were created, immersing the participants from point-of-injury all the way through the ER and OR. Trauma scenarios included overturned cars, active shooters, improvised explosive devices, industrial accidents, and fires. All occurred at Strategic Operations on the back lot of Stu Segall Productions TV/film studio and the emergency and operating rooms were simulation labs where surgeries were performed on live humans – wearing Strategic Operations simulators called “Cut Suits.” The following video, one of twenty-one surgeries simulating various pathologies and trauma, is titled: “Teaching Open Damage Control Surgery through Simulated Hyper-Realistic Laparotomy, Thoracotomy, and External Pelvic Fixation.” Twenty-one RVU second-year medical students, many teaching faculty and visiting surgeons and physicians, as well as surgical and ER residents and staff from Balboa Naval Hospital participated. Since the end of the "see one, do one, teach one" era, physicians in training have had significantly less hands-on experience in which they have been allowed to make decisions and be responsible for the consequences of those decisions. Success is often born of failure. But being allowed to make mistakes - to fail - is no longer permissible in surgical education, for obvious and good reasons: patient safety. This is surgical simulation as you have never seen it before. It is truly a return to the "see one, do one, teach one" method. Participating Surgeons, Medical Students, and Physicians: Mark Lee MD FACS; Anthony J. LaPorta MD FACS; Tuan Hoang CDR MC USN, MD FACS; Reggie Francoise MD FACS; Jonathan R. Gower MD, LT MC USN; Chelsea Zahler MS3; Ryan Slattery MS3; Douglas Robinson MS3