ILOILO CITY (PIA) — The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) LAKAS (Leading the Advancement of Knowledge in Agriculture and Sciences) project paves the way to enhance educational and training methodologies at West Visayas State University-Main Campus.
The recent grant of CHED to WVSU entails leveraging the latest advancements and simulation technology to serve as essential tools for simulation-based education (SBE), especially in the field of medicine, which amounts to P54,590,000.00.
Through the LAKAS Program, WVSU received such funding to implement the significant initiative entitled “Optimizing Simulation-based Education, Training, Collaboration and Research- a Focus on Technology-Driven Teaching and Learning Strategies.”
The project has invested in high-quality manikins and task trainers, which will serve as life-like models replicating the human anatomy and physiological responses, enabling students and healthcare professionals to practice clinical procedures and decision-making in a safe, controlled environment.
During the unveiling of the SBE laboratory marker for its CHED LAKAS-funded project on Aug. 30, CHED chairperson J. Prospero E. de Vera III noted the collaboration among state universities in the country to learn together how to push for technology-based education for SBE.
“This is the first big project of the LAKAS under the administration. It is the first project that we bring together big universities to work on and be involved in developing the capacity and doing high-level research in partnership with foreign universities,” said de Vera.
He added that this is part of the internationalization program of the Commission, hence selecting three of the best public universities in the country, to work together with the University of Adelaide in Australia for the project.
To note, the task trainers focus on specific clinical skills such as intravenous insertions, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), and other critical healthcare procedures, allowing for targeted training and mastery of essential techniques.
Likewise, the task trainers’ primary purpose together with the manikins is to enhance the practical skills of students and healthcare professionals by providing hands-on experience that mimics real-life scenarios.
According to WVSU President Dr. Joselito F. Villaruz, this project provides safe and secure training for the students before they are drawn into clinical areas for actual patient experience.
“The SBE is actually a strategy or a methodology to enhance medical education of medical students or would-be doctor professionals in the future. This provides a safe environment because you can do repeated tasks,” noted Villaruz.
He also cited that WVSU has developed modules or scenarios where students will experience an emergency case in an emergency room, and provide them the opportunity to learn hands-on before they go to the clinic.
“With the SBE, we view that in the future, we will be producing more skilled and more knowledgeable medical professionals in the country,” added Villaruz.
For the part of WVSU College of Medicine dean Dr. Victor A. Amantillo, he highlighted the significance of having the SBE laboratory at the university.
“We have these trainers and manikins to practice on so this is a very important step for medical education. Without the CHED grant, we would not be able to procure them and make our students gain knowledge on the performance of these tasks prior to their going to real patients,” he said.
By integrating these simulation tools into the curriculum, WVSU aims to foster a culture of continuous learning, collaboration, and research that aligns with the university’s commitment to excellence in healthcare education and its mission to prevent avoidable harm in healthcare settings.
With this, Sean Lerry Jim Claud, a WVSU medicine student, shared his take on the possible gains of the integration of SBE into the medicine program.
“One of the things that SBE gives us is the ability to translate what we have learned from the textbooks and the clinical practice guidelines, especially on child dehydration. This will also lead to the enhancement of the practical application so that not only we will be doctors who are good in academics, but at the same time it is expected of us someday to be good in the clinics as well,” he noted. (AAL/AGP/PIA 6)
