Brief history of 'simulation' in midwifery education

Early simulation developments started in the 18th century through the work of the often forgotten Madame du Coudray, a French midwife, with her "birthing machine" (Gelbart, 1998). A century later another important model was made to help practise other life saving skills such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation using the Laerdal Resusci-Ann mannequins (Lind, 1961). In parallel the first full-scale patient simulator was being developed (Abrahamson et al, 1969) but only to be ever used by a few privileged trainees. It is not until the 1990’s that similar work culminated with the successful commercialisation of such simulators. Due to the price of these sophisticated interactive training models, their adoption has been somewhat slow but has now greatly improved thanks to the development of more affordable versions primarily relying on an operator to modify the physiological parameters according to the treatment provided by trainees and the desired patient case to be simulated. It is estimated that over 4,500 medium to high fidelity patient simulators have been sold around the world (AIMS, 2007), approximately 10% of which are in the UK. While they have still mostly been adopted by western countries, several developing countries are currently trying to setup simulation programmes. The University of Hertfordshire is among the early adopters of student-lead scenario-based simulation training in the UK with the opening of its Hertfordshire Intensive Care & Emergency Simulation Centre (HICESC) in 1998. The centre was initially a simulated clinical environment primarily used by nursing and paramedic students and evolved over time as new and more affordable simulation technology became available and their use in addition to traditional training sessions was more widely accepted.

Guillaume Alinier, MPhys, PGCE, CPhys, MInstP, FHEA