PSYC Sim #2

So the second part of tonight's clinical day was to participate in the second live SIM (for all you loyal readers, you will remember the first one simulated auditory hallucinations). Tonight's session was comprised of a computer/electronic medical record case study and two live role playing activities.  Now with the role playing activities you have a patient (someone not in our lab group) who is given a chief complaint and background story and they stay in character for the entire twenty minute session.  One student from your lab plays the concerned family member and you then have two "nurses" (played by the students) or a nurse and a nursing student.  The rest of the lab group and our clinical instructor sits in the room next door where there is a tv which plays/records our entire interaction.  Below is a picture that to give you an idea of the set up (ours is slightly different, but you get the point).

I should also preface this by saying that I find SIMs to be TERRIFYING.  Last semester we had to do a couple of them in our Patient Centered Care class and I always dreaded when I would have to go in and play the nurse (the ironic thing is that I was always fine interacting with patients in the hospital).  There is something about being recorded and critically watched by your instructor, but more importantly your peers, that makes your heart race.  It also does not help that when I get nervous I get really red.

So Kamila and I volunteered to do the second simulation where we had a patient with suicidal and homicidal ideations (SI/HI in the biz).  We determined her suicide plan/the way she intended to make her soon to be ex-husband pay for what he had done, have her contract for safety, find out what the nursing staff could do to help insure her safety, assessed her coping mechanisms, did a little normalizing, determined if she was hopeful for the future and comforted the sister (just to name a few things).  Well let me tell you we ROCKED the entire thing.  The person who was playing the patient said that out of the three semesters she has been doing this we have been the best duo she has seen.  The big catch of the evening was with her medications.  The pt had been prescribed to take her antidepressant PO BID (a.k.a. take drug x by mouth two times a day) and during our interview we learned that she was only taking a single dose in the morning.  BOOM!  We were the only group who has ever caught the indiscrepancy.