For the second year in a row, medical students at Baylor College of Medicine won first place at the 2015 SESAM International SimOlympics Emergency Simulation Competition. This year’s competition took place in June in Belfast, Ireland.
In the competition, teams of medical students must simulate cases that involve the entire healthcare team in the management of a critically ill patient. Teams are evaluated on the basis of their communication, teamwork, decision-making, situation awareness, task management and outcomes. Five teams – Poland, Ireland, Netherlands, the United States and France – competed this year. The competition lasted three days, with the finals coming down to the Baylor team and the team from Poland, where Baylor students won the competition.
Baylor students taking part in the competition were Lakshay Jain, Andrew Kohner, Saagar Patel, Evan Strobelt and Luis Fernandez.
The team’s final simulated scenario on which they were judged involved an intoxicated male who brought himself into our ER with a headache and abdominal pain after falling off a ladder.
“We began by trying to stabilize him when we found out he was hemodynamically unstable, and through our further workup, found out he had a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm,” Jain explained. “The case was interesting because halfway through, we found out the patient was a Jehovah’s witness and would not consent for blood products, so we had to decide if we wanted to transfuse the patient despite his wishes. With this ethical dilemma and the acuity of the patient’s condition, this made an overall fascinating case to take part in.”
“The SESAM Simulation Olympics competitions definitely emphasize that working as a team is essential when it comes to patient care. It was an honor to be team leader of a team that worked so well together,” said Kohner. “Communication is what earned our success; efficient exchange allowed us to quickly recognize and react to what was going on with our patient. I look forward to the 2015-16 academic year because we are expanding the number of teams in order to compete in new competitions; it should be a lot of fun!”
The group was sponsored by Baylor College of Medicine and received financial support from the Indian Doctors Association.
“The team couldn’t have succeeded without the help and support of our Baylor family. Huge thanks to our faculty mentor, Dr. Tyson Pillow, and to BCM for financial support, in addition to support from the Indian Doctor’s Association and our student group sponsor, the American Medical Student Association,” said Baylor medical student Sam Buck, who participated in the competition last year and coached this year’s team.
“I am extremely grateful in getting to go to Belfast for the SESAM 2015 conference and the International Simulation Olympics competition. We got the opportunity to see the latest and greatest in what simulation has to offer, including advances in ultrasound, labor and delivery units and virtual training. It is clear that there is increased emphasis being placed on training through simulation and virtual reality, and I am fortunate to get to see the cutting-edge of the field,” said Jain
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