In modern medicine, simulation presents a formidable instrument to prepare future healthcare professionals for the challenges associated with healthcare practice. Unfortunately, Liberia has been amongst the poorest countries in the world, with its healthcare systems more or less in their infancy stage.
Simulations allow aspiring healthcare students, academicians, and healthcare professionals to hone their skills and develop tangible competencies instrumental to delivering better healthcare.
The University of Liberia College of Health Sciences, with support from USAID under the Bridge-U: Liberia Project, sponsored a three-person ELAB(Experiential Learning and Assessment Lab) team for a training visit to Kenya’s leading medical Centers – Kajibe, Ahga Kahn, and Kenya Medical Teaching Center for two weeks of intensive training on simulation. The team has led by Dr. Hawa Koon; other members were Issac T.R. Dolo and George W. Monibah.
ELAB is a CTLI’s clinical simulation education program with the core objective of training clinicians to competently and confidently provide patient care with lifelike mannequins and other training tools to mimic different clinical scenarios.
The trip exposed the team to a perfect simulation (which entails but is not limited to) the systems, the structure, the processes, best-written scenarios, how to develop simulations; how to work with the equipment; how to assemble and dis-ensemble the mannequins; understanding the concept, run a scenario successfully; understanding how to get people involved and buy into the simulations.
After the two weeks of training, the ELAB Team is back in Liberia, excited and equipped with information and knowledge to improve ELAB’s capacity to manage simulations.
