ENGINEERING

Trent Reed, DO, Department of Emergency Medicine, at Loyola University Health System, had his own passage to India to the Tamilnadu Dr. M.G.R. Medical University Simulation Training in Health Care conference in Chennai, the southern city formerly known as Madras.

“This was my first trip to India and my first overseas speaking opportunity and I was fascinated to learn from my multinational colleagues,” said Reed, director of clinical simulation, Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, who has taught at Loyola for seven years. “Loyola is so technically advanced as far as medical equipment and protocols; it provided a sharp contrast to the facilities in India.”

The second-largest health sciences university in India hosted the “training the trainer” conference attended by hundreds of physicians from approximately 30 surrounding medical schools. Dr. Reed conducted sessions on how to facilitate a simulation session and also how to establish a simulation program.

“We offered the lower fidelity and lower cost version of the kinds of simulation we regularly employ at Loyola,” said the emergency medicine physician who is also an associate professor at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. Instead of the high fidelity life-like simulators he uses at Loyola, Reed demonstrated techniques in India on butchered animals, plastic dolls, and craft materials. “We had to get creative in order to demonstrate the many established benefits of simulation at the lowest cost,” said Reed, who focused on cardiopulmonary arrest, stabilization measures for critical patients, airway techniques, and obstetric and gynecological protocols.

Reed, who lives in Clarendon Hills with his wife and two young sons, was inspired by the enthusiasm for learning he saw throughout India. “I was not surprised to see very high intellectual curiosity at the university and medical school level. But despite the extreme lack of resources, I was amazed to learn that even families who live in the slums prioritize education for their children,” says Reed. “In the end the morbidity and mortality rates are high and the hope is by improving medical education training with focused, specific, deliberate simulation training we can improve the quality and safety of healthcare in the region.”

Reed was clear that he wouldn’t have been able to make the trip without the support of his family, Loyola University, the Department of Emergency Medicine, Dr. Mayilvahanan Natarajan - Vice Chancellor of the Medical University in Chennai, and the Health Education & Learning Projects (HELP) Charitable Foundation President Dr. Narmadha Kuppuswami (the conference was cosponsored by her Foundation and American Tamil Medical Association). He also noted that he was thankful for being introduced to the meaningful project by a Loyola colleague, Dr. Rahul Bhatia, a Pediatric Intensivist, who helped with some of the initial planning for the project as well.