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Officials trucking in medical training to rural Neb.

The goal is to provide free continuing education to help paramedics, doctors and nurses renew their licenses

Associated Press

SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. — The University of Nebraska Medical Center is trucking in medical training to rural parts of the state.

Four trucks equipped to simulate emergency room, ambulance and other scenarios have been stationed in Kearney, Lincoln, Norfolk and Scottsbluff, where the school’s College of Nursing has divisions.

The goal is to provide free continuing education to help doctors, nurses and paramedics renew their licenses.

Hospitals and other health care facilities in small towns regularly have to send staffers long distances for training, officials said, and not all staffers are able to go because they have to run calls or operate facilities.

“The concept is to bring high-fidelity simulation like you would see in the larger cities to the rural communities, small towns, so that everyone gets to train at the same time,” program manager Brian Monaghan said earlier this week in Scottsbluff. The truck in Scottsbluff, for example, will be available to facilities in 22 counties.

Emergency room sections of each truck, allow doctors and nurses to train with the same equipment found in a hospital emergency room. Training mannequins have pulses, blood pressures and even secretions such as tears. The mannequins’ vital signs match monitors in the trucks, just like in a patient’s room.

On the other end of the truck, an ambulance simulation area is outfitted for more than 80 training scenarios.

The customized trucks are paid for by a $5.5 million grant from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust.

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