Brian Mishoe is a certified tinkerer. As a child, he once cured his boredom by taking apart the family toaster for the sole purpose of putting it back together.
“That’s just because I found the screws,” he said. “I’ll take apart anything just to see how it works. That’s always been my thing, and it still is.”
If disassembling a kitchen appliance for the sake of reassembling could tickle his fancy, imagine the fun he has tinkering with programmable, high-fidelity mannequins for an actual living.
Hint: it’s a lot.
Mishoe is the technology administrator at the George Washington University School of Nursing’s simulation lab on the Virginia Science and Technology Campus, a role he’s held since 2022. He oversees the technical and operational management of the simulation center, supporting large-scale clinical simulations and assessments for GW Nursing students.
In addition to technical administration in the roughly 10,000-square-foot lab that emulates the look of a hospital, Mishoe is responsible for setting up the simulation and scenarios students will encounter there. And that’s where tinkering meets creativity.
For example, a day’s assignment for the nursing student may be to provide care and advice to a patient with a heart condition. But before that student enters into the simulation lab, a GW Nursing professor may ask Mishoe to program the mannequin as a “difficult” patient, giving the student an on-the-fly training in bedside manner. Mishoe cracks a smile and gets to work turning the inanimate object prickly and combative at the click of the button.
So, the student goes in and begins the run-of-the-mill procedure when suddenly, the mannequin pulls out a carton of cigarettes from under its gown, daring the training medical provider to not only discourage the immediate thirst for nicotine but also future usage.
The student is expected to communicate to the patient—nicely—to put the cigarettes down and explain that their smoking is perhaps the root of the heart issue. But Mishoe has programmed the mannequin to not go down without a fight, giving the student an attitude with language one might not expect to hear from a replica human.
Mishoe creates that real-world experience—and has a blast doing so—in the state-of-the-art simulation lab that makes GW Nursing students all the more ready for a lifetime of healthcare.
“Students get the entire feel of what it’s like going into a patient’s room—from bedside manner to medications to the electronic health record, what to look for, what to be aware of and knowing who to ask if they have questions,” said Mishoe. “If they need to call a provider or call the pharmacy, all of that is built in. We set all of that up.
“Our job is to make sure everything works smoothly for them and that the experience is as easy as possible.”
He also administers the technology for objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) for nurse practitioner students.
Mishoe, an outdoorsman who still tinkers in his spare time away from the lab, has worked in tech at various schools and departments at GW since 2010, including several years with GW Information Technology. He jokes that his “users,” defined in the IT world as someone interacting with the computer system or software, are now mannequins. The joy he gets from his job, from the students, faculty and staff as well as their human lookalikes in the simulation lab, is abundantly clear.
As much fun as Mishoe has flexing both his creative and tinkering muscles in the lab, seeing GW Nursing students grow is the most rewarding part of the job.
“I’ll watch a student go from being scared of a mannequin in their foundational course to being confident, giving medications and talking to the mannequin like a real patient,” he said. “That’s the best part for me. It feels like I’ve done my job. I always tell students, ‘I’m going to give you the best training I possibly can, because I might be in your hospital someday, and I want you to be ready.’”