UK Emergency Medicine hosts lecture series at Simulation Center
LEXINGTON, Ky. (June 16, 2025) – As part of a monthly education series, local emergency medical services (EMS), nurses and physicians were invited to the UK HealthCare Simulation Center for a hands-on lecture by the UK Emergency Medicine Department.
The series was started at UK in 2023 by Blake Davidson, M.D., UK College of Medicine assistant program director of emergency medicine, and has since expanded to providing education to providers throughout the community every month.
“The lecture series is something I have been working on since I came back from my fellowship,” Davidson said. “Part of my training included a lecture series begun by my mentor, and I thought it was a very valuable asset to pre-hospital care in the state. When I came back, I wanted this to be something that UK could provide to EMS providers in Kentucky.”
This month’s lecture was the first time they have been able to use the UKHC Simulation Center and practice with hands-on experience. The participants practiced airway training, intubations, laryngeal mask airway and other airway techniques.
“The hands-on experience is an expansion to the series I’m very excited to bring in,” Davidson said. “We can always talk about things, but getting a chance to put it into action is crucial for training. Some of the simulations I hope to bring in are procedures that might be low-frequency but high-risk procedures. It is crucial for providers to be familiar with the equipment prior to having to use them in the field and practice is the only way to do that.”
The UKHC Simulation Center is a training and research facility created to advance patient care and safety. It’s a space used to educate with the most advanced simulation technology and experiential learning. It’s a great resource to have on the medical campus to use for the training lecture.
“We are very thankful to be able to use the Simulation Center,” Davidson said. “The team here goes above and beyond for every simulation. Having the Simulation Center involved with the lecture series is a great way to show everyone the high level of training we can provide at UK. I’m thankful for their support in this endeavor and I know that the training of UK EMS providers will be better for it.”
The lecture series typically targets pre-hospital and EMS providers, but the goal is to educate all types of providers so that the medical teams can fully understand what each member’s role is and create more well-rounded systems.
“I would love to see all types of providers involved,” Davidson said. “Not many physicians or nurses get a lot of exposure to EMS education unless they were either in it before or seek it out. Inside the hospital, we are not always aware of their scope of practice and familiar with the level of care that these providers can provide, so it’s important to come together in this way.”
Davidson’s successful monthly lecture series wouldn’t be possible without the support from the emergency medicine team and the physician liaisons who help oversee the daily tasks. His goal is to continue expanding the education lectures to more providers and communities across Kentucky.
UK HealthCare is the hospitals and clinics of the University of Kentucky. But it is so much more. It is more than 10,000 dedicated health care professionals committed to providing advanced subspecialty care for the most critically injured and ill patients from the Commonwealth and beyond. It also is the home of the state’s only National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, a Level IV Neonatal Intensive Care Unit that cares for the tiniest and sickest newborns, the region’s only Level 1 trauma center and Kentucky’s top hospital ranked by U.S. News & World Report.
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