My First Week

This summer, Rivers students are embarking on a variety of interesting and challenging adventures, from doing community service abroad to attending prestigious music camps. Throughout the coming months, we will be periodically checking in with a handful of students to learn more about their experiences. Today, we hear from Alexander Post, who is working at the Children’s Hospital this summer through the Rivers science internship program.

I began my internship in the Simulator Program last week. The main objective of the Simulator Program is to provide a high-fidelity simulation as a tool for healthcare education. In the simulation suite we use a variety of mannequins to train clinicians. The mannequins are extremely accurate representations of the human body - they breathe, talk, blink, and have pulses. In order to create a more realistic environment, the simulation lab is an actual patient room in the Medical Surgical Intensive Care Unit. The control room is adjacent to the Simulation Lab. From there, the patient simulators can be controlled using computers. Nearly any scenario can be programmed - for example, in the morning one of the simulators could have an asthma attack and in the afternoon it could have a heart attack. The clinicians participating can complete any procedure that they would do on an actual patient. The simulator will have a correct physiological response to any drugs given or procedures done, even if it is not the correct action. Over the coming weeks I will help run simulations, shadow clinicians, and learn about arrhythmias (irregular heartbeats). I am very excited about everything I will experience and learn this summer!

-Alex Post