In the middle of the transatlantic crossing, an aircraft engine fails, it is struck by lightning that disables the instruments, a fire breaks out, it collides with a large migratory bird or it suddenly turns off. A pilot must crash several times before carrying passengers. It does so in flight simulators, precise life-size artifacts that can reproduce, for example, the cockpit of an Airbus 320. “Even if they have three minutes before hitting the ground, the pilots don’t freeze, they keep their blood cold, they know what they have to do, thanks to continuous training in simulators”, explains Fernando Gómez, general secretary of the Adventia Pilot School of the University of Salamanca. “There they carry out flight missions, in which the students evolve with a very high level of realism.”
A simulator for medical practices at the Advanced Center for Clinical and Experimental Simulation of the La Paz University Hospital, in Madrid, in which future doctors face emergencies and surgeries on mannequins that are connected to screens where they can observe the results of their actions. /
Like those used for aircraft training, models that mimic real-life things and situations, including unusual scenarios that can cost lives or fortunes, are gaining a foothold in various sectors, such as clinical practice, scientific research, security – from personal mobility to war conflicts-, business management or banking services.
“In the same way that one requires that a pilot have x hours of flight time in simulators before he takes you on his plane, it seems reasonable that before a person enters the operating room, the team in charge of surgery or the anesthesiologist have a similar training, without waiting to do the practices on the fly”, maintains Manuel Quintana, coordinator of the Advanced Center for Clinical and Experimental Simulation of Hospital La Paz, in Madrid. “It is mandatory. We try to simulate all those scenarios that require immediate intervention so that health personnel are as well prepared as possible.”
Serious traumas such as broken bones, cerebral hemorrhage, cardiorespiratory arrest, heart attacks, orthopedic or laparoscopic surgeries are performed in a “clinical simulation environment, which allows you to reproduce rare situations or those that you would never face, such as the crushing of a child’s skull by accident of traffic”, refers the pediatrician Carlos Díaz Vázquez, head of the Simulation-Based Training Area (AEBS) of the V. Álvarez Buylla Hospital, in Asturias. “Simulators are there to not hurt anyone and practice as many times as necessary.”
Clinical simulators are systems that have an increasingly human-looking mannequin, with artificial skin and blood-like fluid, that responds to a program that measures your vital signs, your reactions, and even the number of doses of a drug in your body. organism. The manikin -with prices between 300 euros for chests for CPR up to 90,000- adapts to the characteristics of a patient, such as their weight or age and also does what is asked of it, such as losing blood pressure or giving birth to a fetus coming from the buttocks Connected to a screen, the medical trainees observe the results of their actions. First they diagnose; then they intervene and then they interpret. The machine times your reactions. One minute, two, five. Time is vital.
The virtual flight is reproduced in 1:1 scale cockpits, with real instruments. With costs ranging from €500,000 to €4 million, depending on whether it’s a single engine or an Airbus 320, trainees face virtual catastrophes. Adventia3. Against the fear of driving and to test the reaction of drivers in extreme conditions, simulators have been designed with patterns of commercial cars, used in driving schools and advanced centers with immersive power. /
“The world of simulators with mannequins is tremendous, especially in terms of costs,” says Díaz Vázquez. But it is an investment that pays off. “In the ER, where quick decisions must be made and full coordination between several specialists is required, failures are expensive.”
behind the success
In recent months the reality has changed for most companies. The pandemic and the end of state aid to counter it, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the high cost of energy intersect with the need to internationalize a company, stay in a mature and losing market, or face competitors from other continents with other rules. Millions are at stake in a set of decisions. To add them to the capital of the company, or lose them.
Before that happens, the possible scenarios that open up according to the steps taken by management can be foreseen in the simulators. “They are a sequence of algorithms that reproduce what we observe in reality, amplifying what is most relevant,” explains Alberto Marín, director of Companygame, a company specializing in these developments for companies.
In the simulation center of the Álvarez Buylla Hospital, they treat a mannequin, of the popular ‘Skill trainer’ model, in a real room in a real plant. /
The process to develop them consists, first, in “understanding the business environment, such as the profile of the company or the market and its problems, the evolution in the past, the current situation and its future”, maintains Marín, whose developments can reach a price of 500,000 euros. “Then the scope of work and the educational approach are decided and, in a third phase, data collection and development. They are very long processes, sometimes years.
But it is not necessary to enter specific sophisticated headquarters or large companies to interact with a high-level simulator. Beyond video games that recreate competitive sports in 3D, there are simulators in everyday life, which also support important decisions for individuals and families. “Simulators are not video games, which are pulling the user, with various alternatives that the program always offers,” warns Marín. «In a simulator you organize your time, analyze the information, distribute tasks in the work team and take your way, even if you don’t do it well. When contrasting the results, you reflect and debate. In those nuances the difference is marked ».
THE PHRASES
company game
“They are a sequence of algorithms that reproduce reality and amplify what is relevant”
La Paz University Hospital
“We try to simulate all those scenarios that require immediate intervention”
Adventia Pilot School
«Students carry out flight missions with a very high level of realism»
Hospital V. Álvarez Buylla
«It allows us to reproduce rare situations or those that you would never face»
Duplicated reality is also found in the pockets of ordinary people. In the personal loan and mortgage simulators, which are accessed from the mobile, the user chooses various scenarios of his own future to see how much he can ask for and in what time he can repay it. Also to learn to drive a car there are simulators in driving schools, with rates of about 30 euros per hour, of general access, where you can “feel” both the car and the “terrain” in stormy conditions or with intense snow.
“Typical physical sensations of driving such as speed, vibration, acceleration and adrenaline are experienced,” says a spokesperson for Autoescuela Lara. He also mimics “states of the driver himself, such as tiredness or the effects of alcohol.” The simulators, they indicate, overcome amaxophobia, which is the fear of driving, and help prepare oppositions that require driving.
A key to the success of simulators? «We put the students under maximum pressure, through the competition, which brings emotion. Without emotion there is no learning”, replies Marín. However, “let us not be dazzled by technology,” says Díaz Vázquez. “Simulation is important, but everything is simulation. It’s been done all my life.”
Backbones and railways at the forefront
In addition to high-level training, in some Spanish simulation centers research is also carried out, based on the needs detected in practice. At La Paz Hospital, for example, a specific mannequin has been developed that vomits when intubated. They have also made 3D-printed spinal columns from real models that make it difficult to apply an epidural or a lumbar drain. “They are solutions to the requirements of health personnel,” says its coordinator Manuel Quintana.
The “germ” of the clinical mannequins was the chest to practice CPR, says Quintana, while the first aeronautical flight simulators arrived in the seventies, and worked with steel pulleys, recalls Fernando Gómez, secretary of the Adventia school “Now there are Delta level simulators, with three axes and 180 degree movement, which can cost four million euros».
Currently, in Spain there are developers who are at the forefront in terms of the technology used. For the Ministry of Defense, for example, Indra has developed simulators for the S-80 submarines; and Renfe trains its drivers with devices that recreate “circumstances that are difficult to reproduce in reality.”
“An investigation can take five or seven years, although it depends on how much money there is,” says Quintana. “It is necessary to professionalize the personnel and time to carry out the scenarios, which require a long preparation.”
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