Discoveries
Top Training, Superior Skills
Gifts that Count: Education and Training
Dr. Meenal Misal, a specialist in minimally invasive gynecological surgery with the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, can’t count the number of hours she’s put in at the Women’s Guild Simulation Center for Advanced Clinical Skills. “Having the sim center available 24/7 has been invaluable in helping me practice and solidify new skills for the operating room,” she says. Photo: Rachael Porter
Like astronauts preparing for space flight, caregivers at Cedars-Sinai hone their skills in an immersive simulated environment.
Established as part of the campaign, the Women’s Guild Simulation Center for Advanced Clinical Skills allows medical professionals to practice complex procedures. Every month, the simulation center welcomes more than 2,000 surgeons, physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals to receive training that helps them work collaboratively to master advanced skills and become familiar with the latest medical technology.
That technology includes simulated patients—mannequins that can blink, bleed, talk, hyperventilate, and give birth. These lifelike simulators give everyone from medical students to senior faculty members opportunities to confront unfamiliar situations in a controlled environment. Participants are thrust into adrenaline-fueled scenarios such as resuscitating “patients” or undertaking high-risk procedures. The experience helps them refine their techniques and, ultimately, improve outcomes for real humans.
Now, all new Cedars-Sinai interns and residents pass through the simulation center’s doors, strengthening their clinical and communications skills using fully functioning operating rooms, an intensive care unit, and a trauma treatment area.
► Campaign funding also helped support numerous fellowships as well as the Graduate Program in Biomedical Science and Translational Medicine.
Campaign Feat
Superior Instruction for Nurses
Goal: Prepare nurses to provide excellent, leading-edge care.
Outcome: Supporting a focus on exceptional nursing, philanthropy fueled a dramatic increase in opportunities for training and advancement. Today, nearly 60 percent of eligible Cedars-Sinai nurses have earned specialty certifications in such areas as critical care, rehabilitation, external fetal monitoring, and neonatal intensive care nursing—and 13 percent of them hold nursing degrees at the master’s or doctorate level.
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