Peoria,
17
June
2017
|
17:26 PM
America/Chicago

Medical Students Compete in Simulation Competition at Jump

More than 20 medical students from throughout the state competed against each other for medals and bragging rights at a SimWars event hosted by Jump Simulation, a part of OSF Innovation.

The students hailed from three campuses of the University of Illinois College of Medicine and Southern Illinois University College of Medicine. Teams of four faced-off in simulated emergency patient scenarios before a panel of simulation experts as well as their peers.

The groups took on three different medical emergency situations such as delivering a baby while responding to a father who has passed out, figuring out that a patient had a collapsed lung and managing a metabolic disturbance. The students were expected to work together to solve problems and ensure their “patients” recovered from their conditions.

Alex Blunier, a student at SIU College of Medicine in Springfield says the scenarios were challenging, especially when performing in front of fellow competitors.

“It’s nerve-wracking,” said Blunier. “Because you know that everyone else knows, and it’s really easy especially when you are not competing to ‘Monday-morning quarterback’ and sit back and be like ‘They should be doing this and they should be doing this,’ and when you are up there—it’s so easy to freeze up and be like ‘Ah, there’s a lot going on!’”

 

download
SimWars-Blunier-2

Judges evaluated the teams based on teamwork, communication, problem-solving skills and clinical management. Dr. Nur-ain Nadir is the Simulation Director for the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Peoria. She says this is the first year Jump Sim and UICOMP have organized the friendly competition.

“The reason we wanted to do this for Jump is because we are trying to recruit the best quality residents going forward,” said Nadir. “Residents really are medical students, so we’re trying to get them to come and see our space and we’re trying to get them to come and compete so we can see who’s interested in emergency medicine. So, it’s a cool way to get them exposed to the field and also to the resources we have here in Peoria.”

download
SimWars-Nadir

Nadir says the goal is to expand the SimWars competition regionally. Two teams from Southern Illinois University College of Medicine won first and second place at the Jump event.