What up yall this is Jon Lowrance and this is episode 96 – virtual reality in anesthesia education: SIMVANA with Peter Stallo.
This show is coming out in early August of 2023.
First up: I want to give a quick heads up that our team from Maine Medical Center where I currently serve as chief CRNA will be at the American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology Annual Congress in a couple of weeks in Seattle. If you’re headed to AANA’s Annual Congress this year, be sure to swing by the exhibit hall and check out the MaineHealth booth. My friends & colleagues April Bourgoin, Cat Godfrey & Steve Breznyak will be there to tell you all about career opportunities at our level 1 trauma hospital, Maine Medical Center, and other MaineHealth hospitals. We have everything from independent, CRNA-only practices to a high acuity level 1 trauma center within MaineHealth, so if you’re interested in finding out more about what life looks like in the upper right hand corner pocket of the US, come chat with us! I believe Peter Stallo with SIMVANA – who we’re talking with today on the show – will also be at Annual Congress, so be sure to swing by and tell him you listened to this episode and see what SIMVANA is about in person!
This show is very interesting for a couple of reasons:
- I’m stoked to talk with Peter Stallo. Peter created Prodigy Anesthesia back in 2004. This was probably the very first computer-based anesthesia educational & board preparation study tool. Kids these days can’t imagine getting through anesthesia training without programs like this. And Prodigy is what Kristin & I exclusively used to study for boards back in 2015… so I’m personally very grateful for Peter’s development of that program. (side note… I have no financial ties with Peter, Prodigy or SIMVANA to disclose… this just pure gratitude I’m working with here).
- I’m also stoked about what we’re going to chat about. Virtual reality simulation will likely become a central aspect of anesthesia training in the future. As the technology becomes more widely available and the user experience further developed and refined, programs like SIMVANA will likely become ubiquitous… just like with Prodigy over the last 20 years.
I’m reminded of something Elon Musk stated in a documentary about SpaceX. Now, I don’t know how you feel about Twitter becoming X & how Elon is reshaping that organization or many of his other decisions. But I think we can agree on the fact that the man has created & lead some remarkable organizations built on tenacious visions of what’s possible for the future. In this documentary on SpaceX, Elon talked about how progress isn’t inevitable. Some people just assume that the future will be better… that space travel will become routine or that will we become a multi planetary species or that we’ll solve for global warming & climate change. But these things won’t actually happen unless individuals first imagine that they’re possible and then 2) put the work in to bring them into fruition. Elon is someone who has devoted himself into putting the work into creating paths to a better future.
Similarly, Peter Stallo is someone who didn’t stop progressing after he passed boards back in 2004. I always say that boards is an amazing finish line & culmination of years of preparation & hard work. We’re in that season again right now as anesthesia programs & residencies wrap up between May, June, July & August. It’s awesome to watch trainees make that transition from graduation into clinical practice. So while boards is a finish line of sorts, it’s also a starting line. It’s when the start gun goes off for the rest of your career. And back in 2004, just after Peter took boards, he got back to work. With 2 master’s degrees in healthcare behind him, he set about creating Prodigy Anesthesia. Then in 2014, he completed a Graduate Certificate in Orchestral Composition for Film and Games from Berkley College of Music… I didn’t even know there was just a thing. And in 2018, he began developing a virtual reality anesthesia training program which would eventually become SIMVANA. Peter picked up his third Master’s Degree – yes, his THIRD, in 2021 from the University of Alabama in healthcare simulation and is currently working towards completing a PhD in healthcare simulation from Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Health Professions.
What’s remarkable, is that Peter’s career has spanned the timeframe from when anesthesia boards was a pen & paper exam, through his development of one of the leading digital board preparation programs and now into the first virtual reality anesthesia simulation program. Peter has embodied the very idea that Elon Musk talked about: progress isn’t inevitable. Having virtual reality as an available tool for anesthesia training – whether you’re in Cincinnati, Canberra or Cape Town – isn’t automatically going to be a thing. Someone’s got to put the time in. Or better yet, a team of someones, which Peter will talk about in this show.
So with that, let’s get to the story…
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