Solving Clinical Problems with Simulation
What is urgent about sickle cell anemia.
Children with sickle cell anemia (SCA) have an 11% risk of stroke by age 20.
Transcranial Doppler (TCD) screening and treatment prevents 92%.
Dr. Michael DeBaun’s efforts.
Dr. DeBaun, Chair in Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University, began bringing stroke prevention to Nigeria in 2011. He got TCD machine donations, arranged TCD training for two Nigerian radiologists, and led the SPIN trial of hydroxyurea treatment.
BUT Nigeria has half the world’s population of SCA patients. Their access to care is limited unless more providers get trained to perform TCD.
How Sheehan Medical is helping.
We built a TCD simulator for Dr. Shehi Abubakar and helped him write a curriculum for teaching doctors and nurses to perform TCD. He took it home to Nigeria but unfortunately died soon after. We continue to support Dr. DeBaun’s program to accelerate the training of TCD providers using simulation.
