Health
It’s like a game of Operation — except you’re graded.
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Desert Companion
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internal bleeding causing pressure on one side of the brain. At rest, the mannequins, which can cost $85,000 each, look like evolved crash test dummies, with soft flesh and articulating limbs. When they’re activated, it can be hard not to treat them like patients. That’s what Yucha did while giving a recent tour of the center, snapping into nurse mode in the replica pediatric unit, with its kidsized beds and stuffed animals perched on hospital equipment. The center opened in August with almost $21 million in government and private funding. It sits on UNLV’s campus, but is used by UNLV, Nevada State College and University of Nevada School of Medicine, who share operating costs.
Robots that bring realism Hundreds of students now use the Simulation Center every semester. As they learn, they also play part in an experiment taking place at medical schools across the country, where students are helping determine whether working with realistic mannequins in simulated scenarios makes better doctors and nurses. The answer is still unclear. Dr. David Gaba, associate dean of immersive and simulation-based training at Stanford University School of Medicine, is one of simulation’s original advocates. He helped develop and promote the use of high-fidelity mannequins in the 1980s. Gaba has since published extensively on
C o u r t e s y o f t h e C l i n i c a l S i m ul a t i o n C e n t e r o f L a s V e g a s
“I want my mommy.” Yucha prods the boy’s arm and thigh, pointing out places where students practice giving injections. He interrupts: “I don’t like shots!” Yucha laughs, turns to smile at a large mirror mounted on the opposite wall, and leaves the room. Now a lab technician, watching from behind that double mirror, will turn the boy off. The boy will remain motionless, quiet as a sleeping computer, until someone else needs a sick child. The boy is a high-fidelity mannequin, one of 11 who serve as permanent patients at the Clinical Simulation Center of Las Vegas, where nursing and medical students train for real life on fake people — robots they hope will help them better care for humans. “The real point here is practice,” Yucha says. “We’re allowing them to role play, to try scenarios. Medical simulation is about better patient care, because without this, they’re practicing on real patients.” These mannequins cry, urinate, sweat, bleed, breathe, wheeze, complain, accept injections and produce a perceptible pulse. One mannequin gives birth; a piston pushes out babies at a variety of speeds, sometimes upside down or with an umbilical chord around the neck. Another mannequin has eyes that dilate when the light dims, or to signal a deeper medical problem. Uneven pupils, for example, might signal neurological damage or