Pediatric Emergency Medicine BASE Camp | Weill Cornell Medicine
This was a crazy experience to photograph. The program is organized to invite residents and other young medical professionals in order to give them hands on experience with very realistic emergency scenarios. They had these high tech mannequins in the beds wired up to all the machines; they made noises and showed emotion and everything. One even opened its eyes when I was shooting a close up photo and freaked me out.
On day one, there was a whole day of 15 minute scenarios followed by a 30 minute debriefing. The twist on this, however, is that there is a hired actor to play the part of a concerned family member/guardian who adds an emotional element to the scene. In several of them, these actors turned up their emotion to 11; one was completely bawling crying worried about their child, and the other was furious screaming at everyone.
On day two, they prepped for a scenario dealing with the injuries resulting from an active shooter coming into the hospital. My heart sank thinking “Damn even hospitals prepare for a shooter in this country” but my wife told me this is common in hospitals all over the world as it’s a place of heightened emotion, and even while she was working in Berlin several years ago, a shooter had actually come in and killed three people.
Anyway, this was a blast to spend two days capturing. Big thank you to Joanna Palasz and Kevin Ching for getting me on board here. This was also the first time I truly fell in love with my new camera (I hadn’t gone to mirrorless yet) with its completely silent shutter and impeccable focusing ability, making my job so much smoother.
Day 1 – Emergency Simulations
Day 2 – JOINT MCI Mass Casualty Incident Disaster Trauma Simulations
