WCU Tech Expert Named to International Certification Committee

Posted on by

Richard Viloria discovered his passion in childhood, not long after he started playing computer games.

“I played arcade and computer games a lot,” he recalls, laughing. “‘When the machines broke, I had to fix them.”

By the time he had finished high school, he had aced a class in computer programming and was on his way to Cal State L.A., to study electrical engineering. While working his way through college doing information technology jobs, however, he got pleasantly sidetracked–he was hired at American Career College to support its IT growth. As a member of the IT department, Viloria supported both American Career College and West Coast University.

Fourteen years later, Viloria is now supporting WCU’s simulation centers, and the expertise he has gathered has recently earned him a prestigious invitation: This month, he will join a small cadre of technology experts from the Society for Simulation in Healthcare to help develop the first worldwide certification exam for technicians and specialists in health care simulation.

In layman’s terms, those are the people who operate and maintain the high-tech mannequins and equipment that nursing and medical schools increasingly are using to train health care workers. Equipped with artificial organs and programmable responses, simulators allow students to practice and interact with life-like “patients” in a variety of clinical situations.

However, computerized health care simulators are complex and expensive, and so new to the field that standardized guidelines for their mastery are only now being developed.

“The field of simulation in health care is exploding,” says WCU Simulation Education and Management Director Terry Larsen, Ph.D., R.N. C.N.S., who recently helped devise the first certification exam for educators who use simulation. “But it’s only been in the last 10 or 15 years that we’ve had the technology to create mannequins with human-like responses. At the moment, the people who operate and maintain them are coming from a lot of different backgrounds, and we want to be able to start certifying their competence.”

It was Larsen who recommended Viloria to serve on the international committee that’s developing the certification exam in his field, in part because Viloria has been overseeing WCU’s simulation environment for the past three years. In that time, he says, he has used his IT know-how to assess software, integrate the simulators into WCU’s larger IT network, improve the workflow for educators using the mannequins and simplify videotaping for teachers and students.

“The Sim Center is like a recording studio,” says Larsen. “And when the simulation centers were being built, Richard integrated the technology. He manages all the IT here in our centers along with his IT team making videos of the simulations accessible to our faculty and making the mannequins work when there are problems. He’s done a wonderful job here. He was the perfect candidate.”

Dina Neeman: One Person, Making a Change and Making a Difference

Posted on by

As a nursing instructor at West Coast University’s Orange County campus, Dina Neeman brings something extra—a patient’s point of view.

Two years ago, midway through an accelerated master’s degree program in nursing, Neeman, a cardiac nurse and mother of two from Mission Viejo, was diagnosed with leukemia.

“We were in Las Vegas for my daughter’s cheer competition and I collapsed,” she remembers. When doctors told her that the lack of energy she’d assumed was a case of anemia was actually going to require her to undergo chemotherapy and to be in and out of the hospital for most of the next year, family members and colleagues urged her to put her job and degree on hold while she fought the cancer.

“All my deans were like, ‘Why do this?’” recalls Neeman. “But I needed to stay busy. I felt like I’d die without something to keep me distracted.” So from Skyping with professors to meeting in her hospital room with fellow students for group projects, she spent the next 11 months learning, not only the advanced aspects of nursing, but what it was like to be a person in the hospital room who wasn’t wearing scrubs and wielding hypodermics.

“We don’t always realize how a person’s whole life stops when they go into the hospital,” says Neeman. “How helpless they are. At home, they’re a mother, a sister, an employee. Then, all of a sudden, they have no purpose but to be a patient. And they’re scared.”

Neeman says her experience taught her the value of a support system. From her big, local family to her fellow “cheer moms” to her teachers at the Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, she had help with everything from meals and babysitting to keeping on track for graduation, she benefited from of a massive network of well-wishers. Among them, she adds, were mentors from West Coast University, where, in 2009, she had earned her associate degree in nursing.

“Renee Schweitzer, who is in university administration, was amazing. She worked with me the whole time I was sick. And then, after I graduated, I met the dean, and they hired me. They knew my goal was to work for WCU, and that academia was where I wanted to be.”

These days, Neeman is happily in remission. “My hair has grown back and everything,” she says with a laugh. But her experience is something that makes a point to pass on to her students.

“I tell them that anything we can do to help a patient feel like they’re normal is really important,” she says. “And that there’s so much more to caring for people than we know.”

WCU Dental Hygiene Students Win 3rd Place at CDHA Annual Session

Posted on by

West Coast University Dental Hygiene students attended the California Dental Hygienists’ Association’s (CDHA) Annual Session on Friday April 12, 2013, where they presented original research posters. The students are currently enrolled in a Research Methodology course, taught by Professor Aubreé Chismark, RDH, MS, where their research began.

Out of four research groups who presented at the conference, one group placed 3rd and received a commemorative plaque, cash award, and a foundation scholarship from the California Dental Hygienists’ Association and California Dental Association. Their research project was titled Efficacy of Probiotics in Reducing Cariogenic Bacteria, by Brynne Meza, Christine Galindez, Patricia Malubay, and Wendy Wu Sotelo. Professor Mihaela Popa, RDH, MBA, mentored them through the project. The students have the opportunity to travel to Boston, MA to present their research nationally at the American Dental Hygienists’ Association’s (ADHA) Annual Session on June 19, 2013.

The following groups also presented at the CDHA Annual Session: Have You Ever Been Buffered? by Heather Schneider, Phong Nguyen, Alexa-Rae Sasaki, and Cassie Redlew, mentored by Professor Audrey Hung, RDH, MPH; Thyroid Disease: Are You at Risk as a Dental Professional? by Aida Menasaka, Roman Hayes, Philip Valencia, and Cynthia Zhang mentored by Professor Annette Stelter, RDH, BS, these students will also be presenting nationally at the ADHA Annual Session in Boston, MA;  How Fast Do You Neutralize? by Nam Le, Paula Dacumos, Kaylyn Dunbar, and Aaron Janosco, mentored by Professor Beverly Lovelace, RDH, MS.