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MegaCode Kelly is newest asset to hi-tech learning Some of the best preparation for real-life scenarios is provided through simulation. Pilots have long mastered the skies through flight simulation.   So when Tony Chipas, Ph.D., wanted to maximize the benefits that simulation has to offer in medical training, he spent $7,500 of his own money to buy a manikin named MegaCode Kelly, which has become a critical learning device for the College of Health Professions (CHP) nurse anesthesia students and MUSC physician’s assistant students.   Chipas, director of MUSC’s nurse anesthesia program, bought MegaCode Kelly from Laerdal Medical as a way to provide his 65 nursing students a new method of hands-on instruction.   Dr. Tony Chipas, Ph.D., works on MegaCode Kelly. The manikin has become a critical learning device for CHP nurse anesthesia students and MUSC physician’s assistant students. As a result, CHP has become a member of an elite group of programs in the country offering simulation training. The technology also is an enhancement of the already technologically-rich environment of the new CHP facility.     In addition to its appeal to prospective students, the instructional methods made possible by the use of MegaCode Kelly represent a quantum leap over previous methods, Chipas said.   While students initially learned diagnostic procedures and the administration of anesthesia through a series of lectures, they now have the benefit of learning through direct, hands-on experience in a safe, controlled environment.   Meanwhile, MegaCode Kelly is no ordinary dummy. It is a fully programmable simulator capable of producing a pulse, lung and bowel sounds and vocalization. MegaCode Kelly can even verbalize its symptoms to a student.   Among the procedures students are able to perform are intubations of the airway, administration of IV anesthetic and monitoring of vital signs. Monitors connected to MegaCode Kelly give students immediate feedback and a full simulation of the clinical setting.     From a programmatic standpoint, MegaCode Kelly allows beginning students to get exposure to basic airway skills without risk to patients, and allows more advanced students to get greater exposure to conditions not often seen in clinic. These simulated conditions include malignant hyperthermia and severe allergic reactions, which are common in real life scenarios. Students from the physician’s assistant program also are able to use MegaCode Kelly for learning to perform such procedures as insertion of chest tubes and listening to respiratory and heart sounds.   For Chipas, the capabilities of MegaCode Kelly are all about enhancing the educational experience. With 31 years of experience in anesthesia, 11 years of which have been as a program director (the past two years with CHP), Chipas knows that different students learn in different ways.   “CHP’s Anesthesia for Nurses is the best kept secret in health care,” said Chipas, who was recruited to MUSC from Newman University in Wichita, Kansas. He explained that his “motivation and reward is seeing the light of recognition in the eyes of students as they progress from novices to confident professionals.”     Friday, Oct. 20, 2006 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Island Publications at 849-1778, ext. 201.