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Quality, reliability and safety are primary concerns in your professional world—and in ours. At SiTEL of MedStar Health, we provide a comprehensive education and training solution to those who work in healthcare. As seasoned professionals, we have many years of experience in the practice and management of medicine and healthcare, respectively. We understand how training impacts performance in hospitals.
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We created and continue to manage two of the nation’s largest simulation centers.
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Our integrated learning services are designed to empower healthcare organizations by combining Instructional Design, Clinical Simulation, Live Events, and On Demand Learning.
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Blog
27
Sep
2010
2010
Rise and Fall of Brain Training
Posted by Todd Borghesani
While game technologies can be used to train myriad topics in immersive ways, using brain training software to become, generally, smarter has been disproven.
Once touted as the fastest way to hone your mental powers, brain training software has now been consigned to the shelf of technologies that failed to live up to expectations. What went wrong?
The big question was whether getting better at the game would translate into general cognitive improvements. Some trials have shown success, but have been criticized for being too small to produce meaningful results.
No large, published trial has yet shown concrete evidence that brain training has an effect on real world activity. In fact, the largest trial ever found that it doesn’t work.
Early this year, a team led by Adrian Owen of the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, UK, got over 11,000 volunteers to do either online brain training or surf the web to find answers to a set of obscure questions.
All the volunteers showed improvements in the task they were assigned, but there was no difference between the groups on other tests of cognition. The conclusion? There’s no evidence that brain trainers improve general cognitive functioning (Nature, vol 465, p 775).
Who needs brain training? The right diet, a spot of exercise and meditation and a bit of sunshine are all you need. To learn more about our mental muscle see Helen Thomson’s New Scientist article on “Mental Muscle: Six Ways To Boost Your Brain.”
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Hollie Adejumo
Hollie Adejumo has been a high school intern at the SiTEL Clinical Simulation Center since 2010. Her principal areas of academic interest include chemistry, calculus, and global health. She is interested in providing medical services to the public and serving as a health advocate for underrepresented populations. Hollie hopes that her research will help to reduce unnecessary deaths in the future. She will pursue a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, which will enable her to combine her interests. Proceeding to obtain an MD/PhD will give her the ability to have autonomy in the practice of medicine. This year Ms. Adejumo will be assessing the need for orthopedic simulators, and hopes to begin designing a program for an orthopedic simulator by the end of the year. Outside of school, Hollie participates in a variety of activities. Although she has been a competitive swimmer for most of her life, she also enjoys running cross country and track.
Joyce Donnellan
As the Director of Learning Management, Joyce Donnellan brings over two decades of experience in critical care nursing education and professional development to SiTEL, Medstar’s Simulation and Training Environment Laboratory. She oversees the development and operation of SiTEL’s learning management system. Ms. Donnellan specializes in the development and integration of the learning management systems in complex and decentralized environments. She has extensive experience in education and training, including the development of curricula for both live and e-learning platforms. Ms. Donnellan enjoys collaborating with program directors, educators, and other stakeholders to develop training events and effective curricula. Her research endeavors include studying the impact of online learning on organizational behavior, as well as the integration of educational games into curriculum development. Joyce has presented nationally on e-learning topics, and on innovation in emergency preparedness training. She earned her Master’s of Science in Nursing degree from George Mason University.
Pamela Leonard
Pamela Leonard brings over 15 years of experience in critical care nursing and management to her role as the Director of the SiTEL’s Clinical Simulation Centers. Pam established the first simulation center for MedStar Health and now oversees the operations of several clinical simulation centers in the greater Washington, DC and Baltimore areas. She leads the Clinical Simulation Consulting Services at SiTEL, leveraging best practices pioneered at MedStar to integrate simulation training and education programs into healthcare operations. Pam works closely with Advanced Initiatives in Medical Simulation. AIMS is a coalition of individuals and organizations committed to promoting medical simulation as a way to improve patient safety, reduce medical errors, ensure provider competency, train people to respond to public emergencies and combat situations, and reduce health care costs.
