Its increasingly widespread use makes it possible to anticipate problems in advanced operations, freight and passenger transport or financial scenarios.
In the middle of the transatlantic crossing, an airplane engine cuts out, is struck by lightning that disables the instruments, a fire breaks out, collides with a large migratory bird or suddenly shuts down. A pilot has to crash several times before he can carry passengers. It does this 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 they hit the ground, the pilots don’t freeze, they keep their blood cold, they know what to do, thanks to continuous training in simulators,” explains Fernando Gómez, general secretary of the Adventia Pilot School from the University of Salamanca “There they carry out flying missions, in which the students evolve with a very high level of realism.”
Like models used for aircraft training, models that mimic real things and situations, including unusual scenarios that could cost lives or fortunes, are gaining ground in various sectors such as clinical practice, scientific research, safety – from personal mobility to war conflict, business management or banking services.
“Just as a pilot is required to have x hours of flight time in simulators before taking you on the plane, it seems reasonable that before a person enters the operating room, the team in charge of the operation or the anesthesiologist undergo similar training, without waiting to do the exercises immediately,” said Manuel Quintana, coordinator of the Advanced Center for Clinical and Experimental Simulation at Hospital La Paz, in Madrid. “It is mandatory. We are trying to simulate all those scenarios that require immediate intervention so that health personnel are as prepared as possible.”
Serious traumas such as broken bones, brain haemorrhages, cardiac arrest, heart attacks, orthopedic or laparoscopic surgeries are performed in a “clinical simulation” environment, allowing you to reproduce rare situations or situations you would never encounter, such as crushing a child’s skull by traffic accident ”says pediatrician Carlos Díaz Vázquez, in charge of the Simulation-Based Training Area (AEBS) of the V. Álvarez Buylla Hospital in Asturias. “Simulators are there to not hurt anyone and to practice as often as necessary.”
Clinical simulators are systems with an increasingly human 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. . The manikin – with prices ranging from 300 euros for CPR cases up to 90,000 – adapts to a patient’s characteristics, 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. buttocks Connected to a screen, the trainees observe the results of their actions. First they diagnose; then they intervene and then they interpret. The machine grinds your reactions. One minute, two, five. Time is vital.
“The world of mannequin simulators is huge, especially in terms of cost,” says Díaz Vázquez. But it is an investment that pays off. “In the emergency room, where quick decisions have to be made and full coordination between multiple 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 energy costs intersect the need to internationalize a company, remain in a mature and losing market or competitors from other continents with different rules to confront. Millions are at stake in a series of decisions. To add them to the company’s capital, or lose them.
Before that happens, the possible scenarios that occur according to the management steps can be foreseen in the simulators. “It is a sequence of algorithms that reproduce what we perceive in reality and amplify what is most relevant,” explains Alberto Marín, director of Companygame, a company that specializes in these developments for companies.
The process of developing them consists primarily of “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 the future,” says Marín , whose developments can reach a price of 500,000 euros. “Then the scope of the work and the educational approach are determined, and in a third phase the data collection and development. It is a very long process, sometimes years.
But it is not necessary to enter specific advanced headquarters or large companies to interact with a high-level simulator. In addition to video games that mimic competitive sports in 3D, there are simulators in everyday life, which also support important decisions for individuals and families. “Simulators are not video games that attract the user, with different alternatives that the program always offers,” warns Marín. “In a simulator, you organize your time, analyze the information, divide tasks in the work team and go ahead, even if you don’t do it right. When contrasting the results, you reflect and debate. In those nuances the difference is marked ».
Duplicated reality can also be found in the pockets of ordinary people. In the personal loan and mortgage simulators, accessible from the mobile, the user chooses different scenarios of his own future to see how much he can ask and when he can repay it. Also to learn to drive there are simulators in driving schools, with rates of about 30 euros per hour, of general admission, 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,” said an Autoescuela Lara spokesperson. It also mimics “states of the driver himself, such as fatigue or the effects of alcohol.” Simulators, they say, overcome amaxophobia, the fear of driving, and help prepare for oppositions that require driving.
A key to the success of simulators? “We put maximum pressure on the students, through the competition, which brings emotion. Without emotion there is no learning”, Marín replies. “However, let’s not be blinded by technology,” says Díaz Vázquez. “Simulation is important, but everything is simulation. It’s been done all my life.”
In addition to high-level training, some Spanish simulation centers also conduct research based on the needs identified in the field. In the hospital of La Paz, for example, a specific mannequin has been developed that vomits when intubated. They have also made 3D-printed spines from real models that make inserting an epidural or lumbar drain difficult. “They are solutions to the needs of health professionals,” said coordinator Manuel Quintana.
The “germ” of the clinical mannequins was the chest to practice CPR, Quintana says, while the first aviation simulators arrived in the 1970s and worked with steel pulleys, Fernando Gómez, secretary of the Adventia school, recalls “Now there are Delta-level simulators, with three axes and 180 degrees of movement, could cost four million euros».
Currently in Spain there are developers who are at the forefront of the technology used. For example, Indra has developed simulators for the S-80 submarines for the Ministry of Defense; and Renfe trains its drivers with devices that ‘mimidate conditions that are difficult to reproduce in reality’.
“An investigation could take five or seven years, depending on how much money there is,” Quintana said. “It is necessary to professionalize the staff and the time to execute the scenarios, which require a long preparation.”
Source: La Verdad
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
