The effect of teacher-made simulation moulage on learning cricothyrotomy skills in emergency medicine physicians

Objective: Nowadays, simulation of clinical environment in medical education system (simulation-based learning) has led to a huge revolution in the quality of education and has increased the safety of educators and patients. In this study, we investigated the effect of teacher-made neck and lung simulators in teaching cricothyrotomy skills for emergency medicine residents. Methods: In this pre-post test study, all faculty member of emergency medicine of Tabriz University of medical sciences specialty were invited to participate. After holding an educational and training session for assistants on a teacher-made moulage, all emergency medicine residents performed a tracheostomy on the commercial moulages of the skill lab unit for the second time and their scores were recorded. Results: In this study, 23 emergency medicine residents participated. The mean±standard deviation of age was 35.91±3.57 years. There was a significant difference between the mean duration of cricothyrotomy before and after the training (P value=0.006). There was also a significant difference between the mean scores obtained by residents in the pre-and post-training evaluation (P value<0.001). Conclusion: Findings showed that the moulages constructed by teachers not only can be effective in improving the cricothyrotomy skills in emergency medicine residents but also can reduce the likelihood of failure in performing cricothyrotomy.