Cynthia Gomez is crafty. She can take everyday, household items and create art or recycle old materials into something functional. Cynthia is also a GI technician at the VA Hospital in Houston, Texas, and recently she used her craft skills to make a difference at the hospital.
Fellows often have limited opportunity to routinely practice procedural technique in their facilities. After initial product training and the occasional in-service, sometimes there are few training tools available that allow fellows keep practicing technique.
Many hospitals, including VA facilities, don’t have budgets for things like training models. Cynthia thought the clinicians and technicians she worked with could benefit from having a model to practice on. By using household items such as paint and foam, she made a model of the colon.
“I created the model so our new fellows could practice scoping, so when they scoped on humans it wouldn’t be so hard,” said Cynthia. “I also included polyps so they could practice removing them.”
The clinicians that Cynthia works with found the model very useful. Dr Joseph Cano said, “I believe the hands on experience using the colon and other models eased and accelerated our training in the technical aspects of endoscopy and provided a strong foundation on which to build upon.”
Physician education and training is important, and people like Cynthia and the physicians she works with know it.
We know it, too. Check out some of our educational opportunities for clinicians here.
Do you have people like Cynthia in your facility? How do you practice procedural technique? We want to hear about it – join the conversation on Twitter @CookGastro.
Cynthia Gomez and Dr Joseph Cano are not paid consultants of Cook Medical.