Educating and Exposing Medical Students and Residents to Global Health through Low Fidelity Simulation

Low fidelity simulation represents a modality to introduce global health medicine to medical students and physician trainees.  High fidelity simulation is an educational modality that has successfully been incorporated into undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate medical education in high resource settings; however, it requires infrastructure to support high-fidelity mannequins and accompanying technology.  The use of low-fidelity simulation provides the opportunity to explore practicing in a low resource setting using basic mannequins and materials.  A low-fidelity simulation was developed for medical students and resident physicians to expose learners to a first referral hospital setting with limited resources.  Participants were asked to stabilize patients from a road traffic accident using local materials that might be found in a first referral hospital to reinforce concepts such as health resource limitations, personal protection and hygiene, and challenges of practicing in practice settings outside of ones training.   The simulation involved 56 participants with physician trainees (n=42) and medical students (n=14).  The low fidelity simulation provided a safe learning environment for the participants to gain exposure to international emergency medicine in a limited resource setting and experience how limited health resources can affect health delivery.  The participants were observed during the activity as well as each group of participants received feedback and discussed the application of stabilization techniques, occupational health and hygiene, challenges in health care delivery, and resource limitations in limited resource settings.  Participants’ reflections on the simulation were positive as it provided the opportunity to learn about the practice of emergency medicine and challenges of practicing in a limited resource setting.  Low fidelity simulation provides opportunities for emergency medicine education and training of students and health professionals in both low resource and high resource settings. In addition, simulation can introduce medical students and residents to challenges in developing emergency health systems and global health concepts.