Jump Simulation experts bring training to OSF St. Joseph Medical Center Family Medicine medical residents
Key Takeways:
- Simulation specialists from Jump Simulation in Peoria, Illinois provide a safe environment for first year medical residents to make mistakes
- Residents say they felt more confident doing complex and challenging procedures of intubation and central line insertion
- The first-year residents at OSF St. Joseph Medical Center are also providing primary care for underserved residents at Chestnut Health Systems Family Health Center
TV medical dramas make some highly complex medical procedures look easy. First-year Family Medicine residents are learning it’s much more challenging to intubate a patient or insert a central line (a catheter which goes into a vein close to or into the heart.)
Lisa Barker, MD, who co-led a first-time simulation for three-year Family Medicine residents at OSF HealthCare St. Joseph Medical Center stresses using manikins that can be poked and prodded helps safely reinforce critical protocols.
When you’re talking about higher risk procedures like this, I think it’s nonnegotiable to have practice. It’s even a recommendation from safety organizations that there is simulation practice.”
Resident Kynan (pronounced KEE-nun) Brown, MD, says he learns better by repetitive hands-on practice.
“I’ve had some exposure to some of these procedures in the past and it was helpful in the sense that I knew I felt very rusty and if someone just threw me in and said, ‘Do this,’ I wouldn’t know where to start. I couldn’t list off what’s in the kit but today brings it all back and they say that’s how learning works.”
Jillian Hanson, MD, who received her medical degree from Loyola University in Chicago says she’s impressed OSF St. Joseph can bring in expertise and equipment from Jump Trading Simulation & Education Center in Peoria to help her gain confidence with complex but common procedures.
“Being able to have these manikins with the ultrasound and multiple times to practice throughout the morning has definitely helped but we have lots left to go in residency.”
The six first-year medical school graduates are furthering their training and using skills acquired in medical school to gain real-time experience with advanced medical treatments and mentoring from experienced physician faculty members at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Peoria.
The experience includes placement in various clinical settings such as emergency departments, pediatric hospital units, nursing homes and hospital intensive care, among others. But, as part of a special collaboration, each medical resident also does regular office hours at the primary care clinic at Chestnut Health Systems’ Family Health Center in Bloomington, Illinois.
Associate Director for the Family Medicine Residency program, Rick Anderson, MD, says as a Federally Qualified Health Center, the Chestnut clinic serves Medicaid patients who have been challenged in finding a primary care provider.
“It’s just gonna open doors for all those patients and help emergency departments looking to refer patients they see in the ED. It’s just fantastic. It was kind of a no brainer for both us and Chestnut.”
Dr. Hanson, who grew up in LaSalle-Peru, Illinois and is married to a local orthopedic physician, plans to stay in the region – part of the goal of the residency program – to fill a gap in Family Medicine providers. Hanson has enjoyed seeing patients at Chestnut and likes that every day is different.
“We get to see the breadth of everything from OB and pre-natal care all the way to the elderly and transitioning them into hospice. You have longitudinal patients that you follow and see on a regular basis that become sort of your family.”
With special attention given to the social drivers of health – non-medical factors that impact health and wellness such as financial constraints, housing and transportation – Dr. Brown appreciates the more holistic, personal approach to caring for his patients at Chestnut’s Family Health clinic.
As a doctor who received his medical degree in Grenada, West Indies and did medical rotations in Brooklyn, Dr. Brown says he’s happy to be in Central Illinois and yes, he might just stay.
“I like the Midwest. It’s my first time living here and so far, I’m happy with it so I’m gonna feel it out over the next few years I guess.”
That’s also the goal of the Family Medicine residency program a OSF St. Joseph –to retain the most expertly trained Family Medicine doctors to help Bloomington-Normal area residents continue on their pathway to better health.