MERIDIAN, Idaho — The Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine (ICOM) on Friday hosted its largest simulation event on campus to teach students emergency preparedness.
This simulated event is considered a mass casualty incident training exercise. It brought together ICOM students, faculty members, representatives from the Idaho Medical Academy and cosmetology students from Paul Mitchell the School's Boise and Nampa locations.
Friday's event was organized by ICOM's Emergency Medicine Organization. The exercise included roughly 60 "players" and 15 controllers/evaluators. There also was 20 simulated patients with fake injuries and full patient profiles, according to a news release.
In the large-scale scenario, a team of first responders worked together to triage, treat and determine transport priority of patients across the campus wide scene.
"We often think about mass shootings when it comes to mass casualty incidents (MCIs); but the reality is, MCIs can take on many forms and can happen at any time, without notice," said Mohammad Abuakar, a third year student at ICOM and President of the College's Emergency Medicine Organization. "In fact, COVID-19 resulted in one of the largest MCIs in the world just a few years ago. These events overwhelm resources and truly require everyone's help to overcome. It is imperative that we expose our future physicians to MCIs so that they know how to properly manage one within the hospital and support our first responders in the process."
ICOM leaders said training events like Friday's are vital to education of health professionals and community members.
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