The Center for Medical Simulation’s Jeff Cooper and Toni Walzer, along with their colleagues Jennifer Walker and Philip Spencer, have contributed a chapter titled “Simulation in Cardiac Surgery” to the newly published fifth edition of Cardiac Surgery in the Adult from McGraw Hill.
In this chapter, the writers cover the historical uses of simulation in surgical training, and then move on to the potential uses of simulation in modern surgical education. These possibilities include everything from basic skills training using porcine hearts to task training on artificial arteries and valves.
The chapter also covers in detail how simulation can help an operating room team improve not just their technical skills but also their teamwork and communication skills, as well as their effectiveness in crisis resource management. It examines how insurers have targeted communications breakdowns and lapses in teamwork as both a common and preventable cause of error and patient harm, and how simulation can help mitigate these errors, to increase patient safety and improve patient outcomes.
Finally, the chapter examines the studies which have been performed on the use of simulation as an assessment tool for cardiac surgery residents, and looks forward to where the use of simulation for cardiac surgery will go in the future.
Cardiac Surgery in the Adult is available now on Amazon and wherever medical textbooks are sold.
