Study of physiological responses to acute carbon monoxide exposure with a human patient simulator

• Published in: Advances in physiology education Vol. 30; no. 4; pp. 242 - 247
• Main Authors: Cesari, Whitney A, Caruso, Dominique M, Zyka, Enela L, Schroff, Stuart T, Evans, Charles H., Jr, Hyatt, Jon-Philippe K
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Physiological Society 01.12.2006
• Subjects: Adaptation, Physiological; Adult; Anatomy & physiology; Carbon monoxide poisoning; Carbon Monoxide Poisoning - complications; Carbon Monoxide Poisoning - mortality; Carbon Monoxide Poisoning - physiopathology; Coal Mining; College students; Education, Nursing; Environmental Influences; Experiential Learning; Humans; Hypothesis Testing; Hypoxia - etiology; Investigations; Laboratories; Laboratory Experiments; Male; Manikins; Occupational Exposure; Patients; Physiology; Physiology - education; Pollution; Problem-Based Learning; Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive - physiopathology; Simulation; Survival Analysis; Undergraduate Students
• ISSN: 1043-4046; 1522-1229
• DOI: 10.1152/advan.00063.2006

Department of Human Science, School of Nursing and Health Studies, Georgetown University, Washington, District of Columbia Address for reprint requests and other correspondence: J.-P. K. Hyatt, Dept. of Human Science, No. 251, School of Nursing and Health Studies, Georgetown Univ., 3700 Reservoir Rd., Washington, DC 20057 (e-mail: jkh22{at}georgetown.edu ) Human patient simulators are widely used to train health professionals and students in a clinical setting, but they also can be used to enhance physiology education in a laboratory setting. Our course incorporates the human patient simulator for experiential learning in which undergraduate university juniors and seniors are instructed to design, conduct, and present (orally and in written form) their project testing physiological adaptation to an extreme environment. This article is a student report on the physiological response to acute carbon monoxide exposure in a simulated healthy adult male and a coal miner and represents how 1 ) human patient simulators can be used in a nonclinical way for experiential hypothesis testing; 2 ) students can transition from traditional textbook learning to practical application of their knowledge; and 3 ) student-initiated group investigation drives critical thought. While the course instructors remain available for consultation throughout the project, the relatively unstructured framework of the assignment drives the students to create an experiment independently, troubleshoot problems, and interpret the results. The only stipulation of the project is that the students must generate an experiment that is physiologically realistic and that requires them to search out and incorporate appropriate data from primary scientific literature. In this context, the human patient simulator is a viable educational tool for teaching integrative physiology in a laboratory environment by bridging textual information with experiential investigation. Key words: simulation; physiological adaptation; mining; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; coal workers' pneumoconiosis