A group of first-year Weill Cornell medical students walk into a dimly lit room and see a person lying on the floor with alcohol and pill bottles nearby.
After calling 911, they assess the situation and decide to administer naloxone, a medication to reverse an opioid overdose. The woman starts to wake up.
"What happened?" she asked, her voice filled with confusion and fear. A student kneeling next to her introduces himself and assures her help is on the way.
The scene looks and feels real, but it is one of several simulations in Weill Cornell Medicine’s First Responder Course, which provides first-year medical students with hands-on training for a variety of emergency situations they may encounter anywhere.
“The goal is really to empower students to become capable and confident first responders for emergencies in the field,” said Dr. Julie Zhao, the program’s director and an assistant professor of clinical emergency medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and an emergency medicine physician at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
“By exposing them early to common emergency situations, providing them with the basic knowledge to step in and act, and allowing them to practice through simulation and standardized actor scenarios, we hope to equip students with the skills and confidence to make a difference and potentially save a life,” she said.
First-year Weill Cornell Medical College student Stephanie Nino de Rivera said she appreciated that leaders have newly minted trainees in mind as they developed the course.
“Whether it was administering naloxone, stopping a major bleed with a tourniquet or practicing the ABCs (airway, breathing, circulation), it is empowering to be learning these skills in our first week of medical school,” she said. “It’s also empowering to know we can already help keep people safe and support our communities.”
The course, taught annually since 2002, was created in response to the 9/11 attacks. Dr. Wallace Carter, vice chair of clinical and faculty affairs in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine an emergency medicine physician at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell, is one of the program’s founders. He remembers that first-year students in 2001 felt helpless as they watched the horrific events at the World Trade Center.
"The initial conversation came out of their incredible frustration that they didn't have skills to help," Dr. Carter recalled.
But it wasn't designed to prepare students for a 9/11-like event.
"It's about if they are walking down the street and someone drops in front of them, they're able to help,” he said. “How can you keep them alive until 911 gets there? How do you keep someone calm?"
Over the years, the course has evolved to include more simulations with patient actors and hands-on exercises, such as making a splint or torniquet for someone who was struck by a car. Program leaders have also expanded lessons at the airway stations, including practice with bag-mask-ventilation for manual resuscitation.
In addition to emergency medicine, physicians with expertise in pediatrics and neonatology now participate in the program and provide greater depth to the exercises.
Dr. Carter said Weill Cornell Medicine was one of the first medical colleges to include a first-responder course in its curriculum after 9/11, and other schools eventually followed with their own versions.
"The course has evolved, grown and matured,” he said. “It's something I am very proud of and the Department of Emergency Medicine is proud of."