Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune simulation center seeking full accreditation following successful first year training health care workers

Story by Riley Eversull

Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. – With only 18 months in existence, the Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune’s Healthcare and Bioskills Simulation Center is wasting no time in surpassing goals and transforming the landscape of medical training for military treatment facility staff.

In October, the SIM Center received provisional accreditation though the Society of Simulation and Healthcare. To receive accreditation, the SIM Center met 76 standards for a simulation center including documentation, staffing, and standard operating procedures. Next, the center will prepare for pursuance of full accreditation in 2025.

“[Provisional accreditation] is important because it brings in an outside entity who are experts in best practices for simulation, education, and training,” said Lt. Cmdr. Dana Flieger, department head for the SIM Center and Winsted, Connecticut native. “This is a team verifying that you’re following best practices for national certification and that you will have best outcomes for your learners.”

The SIM Center, established in July 2023, offers training solutions through high-quality simulation, equipping doctors, nurses, and corpsmen to provide care at home and abroad.

Personnel utilizing the SIM Center are able to train on lifelike manikins that emulate human anatomy and functions, ensuring a safe environment for practicing and closing gaps in knowledge before performing care in a real-life scenario.

Accomplishments this past year for the SIM Center include the implementation of the Tier 3 Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) course. The Tier 3 TCCC class is a more complex training for enlisted medical care providers. Hospital Corpsman Second Class C. Wallace is the TCCC program administrator at the SIM Center.

“The course used to be three days, but now it is 10-days, and we are testing each student on 84 skills as there is an increased demand for more advanced learning and deeper knowledge for combat medicine such as use of blood products,” said Wallace, a native of Charlotte, Michigan. “Traditionally, that’s something you’d mainly see when you got to a combat support hospital; now, it is becoming something being given on the frontline.”

According to Wallace, the SIM Center is pivotal in ensuring Navy Medicine personnel are ready for potential conflict whenever it may arise.

“I can’t necessarily take a corpsman to the Emergency Department and teach them how to do a chest tube right there on a living, breathing person, but in combat, that could happen,” said Wallace. “With the SIM Center, now we can take those corpsmen and put them into some of these situations that are as close to real-life as possible, so they know what interventions, clinical decisions to make.”

One of the main components of training with a simulated setting is communication. The NMCCL SIM Center affords that space for growth and questioning. For Flieger, the impact is most noticeable in the confidence of medical personnel completing SIM Center instruction.

“If it’s your first time going through a code or trauma alert, it can be really challenging if you’re not used to it. Simulating that, giving you a little adrenaline boost but letting you do that in a safe place, is really beneficial. There is clearer communication; you learn how to work better together and talk to each other–communication is one of the most important things you can learn from SIM that you can’t stop and practice during actual patient care.”

In addition to preparing for full accreditation review next summer, the SIM Center team will be supporting advanced Surgical Skills for Exposure in Trauma (ASSET) courses and multiple training evolutions for Expeditionary Medical Facility Kilo with Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command Camp Lejeune and 2nd Medical Battalion at Camp Lejeune.