Wednesday, June 18, 2025
CVTC health programs collaborate in simulation lab
Sabrina Keesling and her fellow Respiratory Therapy program classmates at Chippewa Valley Technical College expected they would receive the most comprehensive education. When health care organizations could no longer accept respiratory therapy students because of a change in west-central Wisconsin’s healthcare climate, CVTC instructors found another way.
“We had done rotations for years where we send our respiratory therapy students to shadow anesthesiologists to be in the operating room environment to watch intubations, to kind of know where we’re supposed to stand, the layout of the land, as a part of their education,” said Kirsten Holbrook, CVTC Respiratory Therapy Program Director.
The Surgical Technology program students and instructors have a simulation lab, and Holbrook was determined to bring the two groups of students together so they could learn from each other.
“They could show the respiratory therapy students where the patient would be, where (the respiratory therapists) would stand and about operation etiquette,” Holbrook said.
Last year was the first time students from the Surgical Technology and Respiratory Therapy programs collaborated for this reason. Holbrook said it was a success, and plans are in the works for it to happen in the upcoming fall semester.
“A lot of times we get called to the operating room. We’re the special gas people, but we have to tee it in line with anesthesia. Surgical technologists are also in there with us getting stuff ready for the recovery team,” Holbrook said. “Oftentimes, we are in the same situations with those surgical techs. They can give us the lay of the land, and that’s what we wanted as the learning objective.”
Keesling said the collaboration was important to her education.
“They explained what they do in their job, which was interesting,” she said. “And they told us, ‘This is where the respiratory therapists would go.’ Every surgery situation is different, but without the ability to get into hospitals to see it first-hand, this gave me a great understanding of how it all works and the things we do together as a team.”
Keesling has since graduated from the program, but she said the two-day exercise was great, and she wished they had done more simulations with other programs.
Holbrook has every intention of continuing collaborations like this.
“We did it. It was a success. The surgical tech team was awesome, and it helped us meet our learning objectives,” she said. “Hopefully, we helped them a little bit, too.”
