Health care simulation expert Tony Errichetti, Ph.D., directs NYIT’s Institute for Clinical Competence, a virtual hospital on the Old Westbury campus.

NYIT’s College of Osteopathic Medicine empowers students to use hearts, hands, and technology to address a looming health crisis

By Rose Sumer

When 72-year-old Harriet Klein made it to NYIT’s Old Westbury campus after falling in her home, doctors at the College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYCOM) faced a dilemma. A hysterical Klein, lying on a gurney and gasping for breath, was in dire need of medical attention. Her medical history posed a labyrinth of complications: diabetes, a Penicillin allergy, emphysema, and kidney disease.

Seconds later, she was in cardiac arrest. NYCOM students took turns giving CPR.

They saved Klein—and then had to do it all over again, at least six more times as part of their medical training. Each scenario is a human simulation exercise conducted on an anatomically correct robot, preparing students for rotations in hospitals and future residency programs.

Treating “Ms. Klein” is just one example of NYCOM’s approach to real-time, high-tech medical education. This level of technological sophistication is hardly a luxury in the world of 21st-century medical education; it is indeed a necessity, and a crucial step toward addressing a troubling trend—a shortage of up to 200,000 doctors in the United States in the next 15 years, according to research led by Richard “Buz” Cooper, M.D., director of the NYIT Center for the Future of the Healthcare Workforce. NYIT’s goal is to close this gap—it has the second largest total enrollment among osteopathic medical schools and the third largest total enrollment of all medical schools (M.D. and D.O.) in the United States.

As America’s population ages, baby boomers are poised to overwhelm an already strained health care system with fewer doctors to care for them. They demand a high quality of life in the face of heart, lung, and renal diseases afflicting them in record numbers. Add to the mix 24/7 access to good and bad health care information, primarily through the Internet, and physicians are confronting a medical field in flux.

Richard Cooper, M.D., director of the NYIT Center for the Future of the Healthcare Workforce, says the number of doctors is dropping as the demand for quality care grows in the United States.

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