Abstracts

Rationale: One of the most common neurological emergencies is status epilepticus. Various effective therapies are available for this condition, but often they are time-dependent. Therefore, the early diagnosis, timely and effective treatment of status epilepticus is crucial in achieving optimal clinical outcome. Often times, traditional methods of training does not effectively provide the necessary platform for these teams to experience and train for such clinical cases and consequently, this often results in delayed diagnosis and therapy and permanent neurological deficit. The objective of this project is to provide an opportunity for appropriate medical providers trainees spanning the different relevant disciplines to practice together in a stimulation curriculum and provide a dynamic and interactive learning environment to advance the mastery of effective care in various real life situations.  Methods: Two status epilepticus scenarios were created for this simulation. Each scenario is designed to provide the dynamic environment of patient’s disease progression based on the learners’ diagnosis and management decisions. Each scenario is designed to run for 20 minutes with a High Fidelity Mannequin with scenario director acting as the patient’s voice to verbalize neurological deficit findings. Each  group consists of 1-8 learners. In order to adjust for the level of baseline knowledge, medical students, graduate nursing students and neurology residents will be separated to different groups. 1-2 accelerated nursing students or neurology nurses are incorporated to the group. All learners are in their original roles.  Debriefing is given after each case is completed. We will analyze the pre and post-test result collected through the University of Massachusetts Medical School Interprofessional Center of Experential Learning and Simulation (ICELS) learning space software to determine the simulation impact in knowledge and confidence in the management of the assessed case scenarios.  Results: 63 learners had participated in this simulation so far and the program is still ongoing. Preliminary result showed that this simulation increased the learners' proficiency on executing the status epilepticus treatment algorithm. Learners also becoming more familiar with anti convulsant treatment side effects and its management. In addition, they also learn the appropriate interaction with members of treatment team to faciliate and escalate care in a timely manner.  Conclusions: Simulations of medical situations are an ideal teaching tool for experiential learning in a safe environment to promote high quality health care and patient safety. Neurology emergency simulation curriculum is crucial in facilitating our learners to become proficient with the status epilepticus algorithm so that it becomes a second nature when they respond to the actual patients.  Funding: University of Massachusetts Medical School Interprofessional Education Grant (IPEG grant)