Adopting Simulation Technology to Teach Veterinary Emergency Response By Angela Clendenin ALEC 640 – Theory of Change October 20, 2015

The Innovators Community Connections – Veterinary Emergency Response Wesley Bissett, DVM, PhD Director Texas A&M Veterinary Emergency Team Deb Zoran, DVM, PhD, DACVIM-SAIM Medical Operations Officer Texas A&M Veterinary Emergency Team

The Situation Ever since Hurricane Katrina, animal issues have become an important component of emergency response Veterinarians must assume the lead role, but most are not prepared to provide care in a disaster situation How do you provide a disaster experience for veterinary students so they can enter the profession prepared to address animal issues?

Other Questions In a treatment situation with live animals, students are often not the decision-makers for the team No ownership for decisions made Teaching to the seven core competencies: communication, collaboration, management (self, team, system), lifelong learning, leadership, diversity, adapting to change – all within the context of veterinary emergency response

The Innovation Second Life® virtual environment Social media platform Participants are represented by avatars they can then use to interact with others and the simulated environment Currently using two “islands” that are closed to outsiders (one hurricane, one tornado)

Students as a deployed veterinary team Triage and treatment decisions Large and small animals Instructors play different roles (residents, owners, difficult people, reporters) Evaluation mechanisms to track performance In Life

Knowledge and Persuasion Recommendation from an instructor on the teaching team (peer) Discussions with opinion leaders already using the platform Considerations Potential to “deploy” students to a disaster without putting then in harm’s way Interactivity

Decision: Relative Advantage Engagement and interactivity Ability to include seven core competencies Students can “practice” veterinary medicine and make triage and treatment decisions as a practitioner would (no faculty input) Students own their decisions including mistakes and the ability to recover from them.

Decision: Compatibility 4 th year of veterinary medical education is based on experiential learning approaches Serves as a means to extend clinical learning beyond what is possible in a hospital setting Students are very familiar with using computer technology in classrooms and in their personal lives

Decision: Complexity Effective teaching using this platform requires a significant amount of man power to play the different roles For some actions, the platform is not very intuitive We have actually “pushed” the programmers to develop new tools to enhance the experience and evaluation we need Even though highly technical, it was easily picked up by instructors who were not particularly adept at technology

Decision: Observability Visited with opinion leaders and watched as their students used the platform Did not actually participate until after first used with students Observing others use the platform fostered visions for future re-invention

Decision: Trialability After first use, recognized it would need to be re-invented for our more specific use Before adoption, we were able to work with programmers to familiarize ourselves with moving and communicating with each other in the simulated environment

Implementation: Re-Invention Learning each time the simulation is used Only two scenarios created, but essentially every experience is different because of the different students What they say and what they do feeds how we continually develop the simulation Each use provides an opportunity to improve evaluation tools

Implementation: Challenges Every change in the simulation requires programming New ideas require funds, some of which are not always readily available Setting a realistic budget for future development Finding enough actors to challenge the students on the learning objectives

Confirmation: Evaluation Student buy-in of the scenario is vastly superior to a tabletop exercise Observation of engagement by students Regular post-rotation surveys and comments

Summary of Adoption Perceived attributes were favorable for adoption The decision was both optional and collective Adoption was through interpersonal channels The nature of the social system was very homogenous making adoption optimal Change agent’s promotion efforts were significant

Any Questions?