Mannequins that bleed: Take a real-life tour of new surgery simulation center

A new simulation facility at the medical center will give medical residents, staff and students a first chance to experience surgery without the high stakes of a real operation.

The Goodman Simulation Center at Stanford is now open and complements other simulation facilities at the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System.

Faculty and staff will get a chance to try out some of the center's high-tech tools during an open house June 1 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The center is located on the third floor of Stanford Hospital, adjacent to the operating room, and is designed to resemble the real thing. But instead of operating on actual patients, surgeons practice on high-tech mannequins that talk and even bleed.

Behind a one-way mirror is a control room where operators can recreate complications, such as massive bleeding, that happen during a real surgery. Video cameras will capture all of the action and, after the simulation, the surgical team will watch and evaluate their performance in the debriefing room next door.

'I think we're seeing a sea change,' said center director Thomas Krummel, MD, professor and chair of surgery. 'For the first time, I'm hearing and seeing simulation in the mainstream.' Over the last 20 years, medical simulation has gone from an outlandish idea to a tool doctors and medical students increasingly use to improve their training, he said.

The $4 million facility is named after its benefactor Joseph Goodman, PhD, professor emeritus of electrical engineering.

Surgical residents will be among the first doctors to use the center. The new surgeons will get 'a chance to have a 'do-over' because they can practice and rehearse not once, but several times until they are comfortable,' said Sandra Feaster, the center's program director. 'This is a chance for teams to train and to enhance their communication skills, with the goal of improved patient safety.'

Medical students will also benefit from the center, Krummel said. Students can't participate in real surgeries, and so the center will give them a taste of the operating room they would not otherwise get. In addition to the mannequin-based training, the Goodman center houses training devices for endovascular procedures and laparoscopic surgery.

Ewen Callaway was a science-writing intern in the Office of Communication & Public Affairs at the School of Medicine.