When the new Wichita Biomedical Campus opens downtown, the majority of Wichita State University and WSU Tech student teaching will occur on floors one through four, KU Wichita’s medical and pharmacy schools will use floors six through eight, and the fifth floor will be shared by all.

That’s what has Elisha Brumfield, D.O., excited. He’s medical director of the Simulation Center at KU School of Medicine-Wichita, which together with WSU and WSU Tech will form a jointly operated Simulation Center on the fifth floor of the new campus.

“That is the floor where things are truly shared,” Brumfield said. “We already have some programming that involves collaboration. I anticipate as we get to work closer together, we’ll be able to overlap our curriculum more each year.”

Meanwhile, he added, “The ability to share expertise with each other will be immediate. We’re just going to be closely associated by the anatomy of the building.”

The 20,000-square-foot center will be considerably larger than the one Brumfield oversees at present, and will consist of:

• • a 1,000-square-foot, four-bed simulation room with movable wall for separation  
  • six 425-square-foot, two-bed simulation rooms  
  • a control area behind mirrored windows to allow visibility into each simulation room for faculty observation and participation
  • a 30-person simulation classroom 
  • five 12-person debriefing rooms 

Brumfield said some delay in collaboration is probably inevitable. “Everybody’s programming a year out from now, so it’s hard to overlap the needs of the medical students with the nursing students and physician assistant students. As we get to work, we’ll get to aligning more and more, I’m really hoping.”

Brumfield anticipates the shared Simulation Center will lead to more training like the medical school does with the WSU College of Health Sciences, using what’s known as the TeamSTEPPS (Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety) curriculum. Developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the U.S. Department of Defense, it’s designed to improve patient outcomes by fostering teamwork and communication.

Currently, medical students take part in a simulation in which a standardized patient portraying a homeless veteran comes in for an outpatient appointment, accompanied by a loved one. The students assess and prescribe treatment for the veteran as part of a team that includes students from WSU and other schools who are training to be nurses, physician assistants, dental hygienists and other health professionals. Depending on the learners present, the veteran scenario is adaptable to their academic needs. The veteran may be suffering from a substance use problem, multiple chronic conditions or other health issues.

“It’s an effort to develop a shared understanding and shared decision-making model and eliminate biases we have about each other’s professions,” Brumfield said.

“Currently, we train a lot in silos,” Brumfield said. “We have a lot of assumptions about what other people do.”

While such a team approach might be unusual in real-world settings, the training shows students the potential possibilities of interprofessional care. That aligns with the mission of the Simulation Center, Brumfield said.

As state-of-the-art as the new Simulation Center may be, it’s only a means to an end.

“The key thing from KU Wichita Simulation Center’s standpoint is, we love simulation but we see it as a tool for education more than our mission,” Brumfield said. “Our mission is really to transform health care and that’s through interprofessional education and including patients and family in their care.”

Above, left: Elisha Brumfield, D.O.

Learn more

Go to the Wichita Biomedical Campus page to learn more about the new home for health sciences taking shape in downtown Wichita.

Learn more about the Simulation Center at KU School of Medicine-Wichita.