Projects Underway
An open-source high fidelity veterinary patient simulator (VPS)
Daniel Fletcher
Project Team- Barrett T. Meckel, State University of New York - Delhi
- Katherine M. Murphy, State University of New York - Delhi
- David Weiner, I-Town Designs
- Terry Kelleher, I-Town Designs
Cornell University, NYS College of Veterinary Medicine
2016
Tier Three
Veterinary clinical training follows an apprenticeship model in which trainees observe experienced clinicians treating cases presenting to teaching hospitals. High fidelity patient simulators enable an approach based on deliberate practice, in which relevant clinical scenarios designed to reinforce specific learning objectives are presented to trainees, who apply their knowledge in real time. This affords an opportunity for trial and error and learning from mistakes, highly effective approaches for adult learners. Unfortunately, high cost has limited the use of these technologies in veterinary training. We propose to develop an open-source, extensible veterinary patient simulator (VPS) that will make this pedagogical approach affordable for veterinary and veterinary technology training programs, and to test the efficacy of the VPS for teaching cardiopulmonary resuscitation to students in these programs. The resulting software, hardware design, and documentation will be made available via a website and GitHub repository to encourage further development and widespread use.
The final product of this project is an open source simulator for veterinary training that can be built at low cost, extending access to this new teaching modality to more resource constrained environments. Simulation teaching is highly engaging and we're using it for continuing education events at Cornell to help introduce alumni to this exciting new teaching methodology. We believe that this will strengthen our relationship with our alumni and encourage them to be more involved with the teaching program.