I would consider doing the simulations a valuable experience. The cases that we were presented were challenging, more so than the simulation earlier in the semester, and really encouraged us to work as a team in order to get a strong assessment completed. I feel much more prepared to address mental health in patients in a clinical setting than I did at the beginning of the semester, and even after the first simulation. I learned more about how the bio-psycho-social model are inter-related and not just three distinct categories.
Some of the challenges included the diseases, the time restraints involved, and working in a group. The diseases modeled in the simulation were complex, including borderline personality disorder and schizophrenia. The actors and actresses did a good job representing the diseases, and overall, I think they were more combative, or at least less willing to provide information then the first time around. This made us be more exact with our questions are more attune to smaller cues and hints that the patient provided.
The time was a challenge because we all went in with certain domain we wanted to focus on, and of course that went out the window after the first few minutes but as a team we were all aware that we wanted to get a full assessment which would include all three domains and patient education. We addressed this problem by letting the patient led our examination and if we could get as far as we wanted with a certain area, we learned to be ok with that. If I was a patient, I wouldn’t want to go rapid fire questioning with a panel of nurses, and ultimately, I think it leads to better care.
I’m glad we worked in teams for the simulations that we did, but it does come with some challenges. Especially with the first case as we were learning to work better together, there was some cutting off lines of questioning but that got better as we practiced more. One thing that I realized is that I can put a good deal of faith in my peers. For example, there were several times that I’d be on a roll with questions and someone would start to ask a new question. At first, I got a little frustrated because I was about to ask something important, only to be impressed when that person would ask exactly the question I was going to ask anyways. It was amazing that we were all on the same page together, looking at the same thing and drawing the same conclusions. Obviously, healthcare is a team-oriented activity, but this was something else.
