On Nov. 15, FGCU hosted the Disaster Day Interprofessional Simulation for its students from Marieb College of Health & Human Services. This was the largest event of its kind to ever be held in Southwest Florida.
To prepare for the event, Dr. Joseph Buhain, the director of interprofessional simulation and emerging technology at Marieb College, had to prepare months in advance. He started work in April 2024 after asking people in the community for their opinions.
“So, I’ve done it before, not at this college, different college, and being in the military, we do it all the time, so we do a lot of disaster training,” Buhain said. “The organization really stemmed from an advisory group. So, I did a talk, I met with some people out in the community. I said, ‘Hey, what do you think, is this something you want to do?’ And they were like, ‘Do it!’”
Buhain said it took a lot of planning to work out the logistics of the event. He had to figure out how many students would be participating, how many patients they would need and how much funding would be needed.
“[There’s] lots of logistics planning. It’s called ‘project management.’ You have to timescape everything. So, I did it by months,” Buhain said. “My biggest thing was, if we do this again next year, I want to make sure there’s opportunity for the ones who don’t go to do it. So, I don’t want the same people, because I want to be able to open it up to the next set of people who didn’t see it.”
The event started at 7 a.m. with students being treated to a continental breakfast. Then, in the Cohen Student Union, students listened to speeches, learned about music therapy and how to perform CPR. While the Marieb students learned from educators, the volunteers got ready using makeup to make false injuries, such as wounds and burns.
There were about 120 actors in attendance, as well as high-fidelity simulators. Some of the actors would portray a cardiac arrest, while others would act out a stroke or simulate a PTSD attack or simulate depression. Simulators imitated giving live birth, in which students would have to deliver a lifelike newborn.
“20% of the patients will have some mental health disorders, maybe about 30, 40% will have some lacerations, cuts and bruises, and another 20% or 30% will probably be more severe patients that are needing more care. So, the whole idea is, I reached out to the fire departments and police departments and said, ‘When disasters come, it’s not all about blood and guts. What do you see?’” Buhain said.
One of these actors, Lowell Fryns, a freshman majoring in public health, was acting out a scenario where he had arm and leg injuries and couldn’t walk without assistance.
“It’s very fun on the level that you get to go out and, you know, act a fool. And they were also, on some level, joking around, but these nurses, they’re going to eventually have to deal with something like this,” Fryns said. “So, they were preparing themselves for more serious situations. But other than just, you know, having fun with it, it was also very neat to see.”
James Noyce, a junior nursing student, worked with an actor who had burns, gashes in her legs and head injuries.
“It was interesting because we haven’t even experienced this in clinical yet, so this is as close as it gets to the real thing, and it was very interesting to see how it actually works,” Noyce said. “[I learned that] there’s only so much you can do because we had materials that we wouldn’t have had realistically, like some medications that we wouldn’t have at the scene, and that it would be way harder than it actually was when we just simulated it.”
To finish off the event, LeeFlight, a public-private partnership between the Lee County Department of Public Safety and Air Methods, which provides Lee County with air medical services, demonstrated an airlift procedure. On Rec Field 1, they loaded actors into and out of the back of the helicopter.
In total, 650 people participated in the event, including the Florida State Guard, local healthcare professionals and supply personnel.