Training is important in any job field and the field of medicine is no different.

The staff in Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton's Simulation Center offers hands-on, hi-tech training to help medical providers and hospital corpsmen deal with real life situations.

"The biggest reason why we have simulation is for relevancy of practice; instead of pretending you can actually put your hands on it," said Roger Lankheet Jr., NHCP simulation center specialist. "We provide equipment that mimics realistic situations. We want people to practice techniques and processes and avenues of good practice before they do it on real people. The mannequins can take it, that's why we do it."

Lankheet operates the hospital's "sim center" with the assistance of Mona Cruz, simulation operation specialist, and has helped build the center from a two-mannequin center in 2012 to a 14-mannequin lab with a variety of realistic mannequins to practice on.

"[Our mannequins] go from birth all the way to death," said Lankheet. "We have male, female, infants, children, adults, pregnant and non-pregnant so that we can do the whole gamut."

In addition to the many different mannequins, the sim center is also equipped with several task trainers that allow events such as the introduction of chest tubes, dealing with missing limbs and even arms to practice inserting an IV.

Providers agree that having realistic hands-on training helps the learning process.

"The use of simulation takes a lot of the artificiality out of the training that you do," said Lt. Cmdr. Virginia Damin, multi-service ward and intensive care unit department head. "Instead of having a notional discussion of how you would resuscitate a patient, students are able to actually put their hands on the "patient" and practice things they would normally do."

Lankheet mentioned that there has been an overwhelmingly positive response from those who have taken the class.

"I love hands on training, so being able to be trained and work with patients that simulate real situations is amazing," said Petty Officer 3rd Class Emily Yeager, who works in NHCP's maternal infant unit. "The sim center prepares you and gets you familiar with the equipment. When I'm really in it and I'm doing the training that's when I know I'm really soaking in the information."

According to Lankheet training has gone from an average of about 2,000 hours of training per year to an average exceeding 2,000 hours per month, and with more than 5,000 hours in the month of April alone.

"People are seeking us out, and that is the exciting part,' said Lankheet. "They're soliciting our assistance which tells me that they have taken it from 'oh this is drudgery' to 'hey how can we have some fun'."

For more information on the simulation center please contact Roger Lankheet at 760-719-3664.

For more news from Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton, visit www.navy.mil/.