Jennifer Brindise
Forget the stethoscope — the video game controller could be the newest item you find in your doctor’s black bag.
Medical trauma doctors and nurses throughout Florida are testing an interactive training program developed by University of Florida experts to model a mass disaster involving patients with burn injuries.
The federally funded program, “Burn Center,” simulates an explosion at a theme park and teaches life-saving skills needed to treat up to 2,000 victims of burns, bombs and blasts. Health professionals care for virtual patients, making crucial decisions and dealing with potential complications from their injuries. The game features multiple scenarios, and players receive scores based on response time and accuracy of care provided.
“Burn Center targets trauma surgeons and nurses to provide training regarding what they would encounter in burn and blast injuries — something they may not see every day,” said David W. Mozingo, M.D., a professor of surgery in the UF College of Medicine and director of the Shands Burn Center at UF, who collaborated with UF simulation expert Sergei Kurenov, the Florida Department of Health, ProMedia, and Orlando-based 360Ed to create the fast-paced training program to simulate a terror attack involving mass casualties.
“Every time you play the game it is going to be different because the complications and patient problems are put in a ‘controlled randomness’ where it is an appropriate complication to occur, but may not occur every time you play the game,” said Mozingo, who developed the patient training scenarios with the help of other Florida burn and trauma physicians.
Disaster preparation and response training are crucial to victim survival after a mass casualty incident, Mozingo said. The nation has only about 1,800 burn beds, with just 60 in Florida, limiting opportunities to care for patients in the aftermath of a mass disaster. Opportunities also are limited to prepare key medical practitioners for the unexpected. Eventually the program will be made available nationally.