The most cooperative of patients

Third-year students beginning their clinical clerkships took to the new Yale Center for Medical Simulation on June 15 to practice skills best learned on a manikin instead of a live patient. At the expanded center, which opened in January, they used bag-valve masks for manual ventilation and inserted catheters and nasogastric tubes into the practice manikins. “Our patients today are cooperative for you,” joked Leigh V. Evans, M.D., director of health care simulation. In addition to learning technical procedures, clerkship students have the opportunity to lead medical teams in simulated case studies based on real patients. “It's active learning, it's feedback, and they get to practice,” said Evans.