UniSR team of Pediatric residents wins the 2023 Pediatric Simulation Games

The team of Pediatric residents from the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University has won the fifth edition of the Pediatric Simulation Games, the "Pediatric Emergency Olympics", held at the Vittorio Veneto Salvemini Institute in Latina from 6 to 9 September.

Over 300 residents divided into 36 teams, 30 Italian and 6 foreign (French, Spanish and Portuguese), competed in simulations of pediatric emergency rooms. During the competitions, the residents compete in emergency simulations, reproducing what happens in reality within the emergency departments.

The Pediatric Simulation Games were created in 2017 by Prof. Riccardo Lubrano, head of Pediatrics and Neonatology at the Santa Maria Goretti Pontine hospital and professor at the University of Rome La Sapienza. The aim of the Games is to provide all the trainees who participate with a unique way of working and training, making the most of their preparation.

Each team of young pediatricians competes for three consecutive days in approximately 150 games, simulating the diagnosis and response to various pediatric emergencies, from allergic reactions to cardiac arrest, from head trauma to epileptic seizures, through the use of latest-generation-mannequins, capable of reproducing the effects of the techniques used on critical patients through sensors that will signal the success or failure of each maneuver.

Judging the performances, an international jury of experts, who have collaborated with Prof. Lubrano since the birth of the competition: Prof. Monica Kleinman of the Boston Children's Hospital, Prof. Allan R. de Caen of the Stollery Children's Hospital of Edmonton, Prof. Marc Berg of Stanford University, Profs. Vinay Nadkarni and Elizabeth Sanseau of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Winning the victory was the UniSR residency team, composed of: Luca Galimberti (team leader), Matilde Cossutta (coach), Monica Palmoni (airway), Marta Pezzuto (compressions), Francesca Arrigoni (compressions), Camilla Visconti ( monitor), Giulia Tarantola (time keeper), Chiara Irene Ferri (drugs). In second place after UniSR, the team from Parc Tauli Health Corporation of Barcelona.

Alessandro Aiuti, Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the UniSR Postgraduate School in Pediatrics, comments:

“Our residents have prepared themselves with commitment and passion, thanks also to the availability of Dr. Calvi and some tutors, and have created a beautiful, close-knit team that does honor to our University and the future of Italian medicine”.

Adds Dr. Maria Rosa Calvi, Resuscitation Anesthetist, Neuroradiology / Interventional Neuroradiology area coordinator at San Raffaele Hospital:

“The simulation allows having a training experience both in terms of technical and non-technical skills, which are the basis of teamwork. And it is precisely teamwork that in emergency situations allows us to quickly make correct decisions and implement life-saving maneuvers".

The UniSR Rector, Prof. Enrico Gherlone concludes:

“Vita-Salute San Raffaele University teaches its students, from the first years of the course, the importance of teamwork. The winning model in patient care is that of the multidisciplinary team, in which doctors, nurses, psychologists, physiotherapists and all the figures that make up the broad spectrum of healthcare professions operate in an integrated manner in each phase of the patient's diagnostic and therapeutic path, ensuring the best outcome.

The specialists of our university, by winning the Pediatric Simulation Games, have repaid our effort for quality training, based on interdisciplinarity, on the continuous dialogue between the clinic and research. This aims at providing students not only with broad medical knowledge, but also, and above all, a progressive experience of the real world that they will encounter in the concrete performance healthcare profesison, in which it is fundamental to cultivate one's own skills but it is equally important to know how to enhance those of others. Only in this way can we achieve the excellent results that distinguish our institutions".