Training Nurses With Virtual Veins

meganthom writes "UK Haptics is developing a virtual hand to help nurses learn how to draw blood and put in IVs in a realistic manner. Though plastic models are currently used, these do not give new nurses the 'feel' for how much pressure to apply to the needle, and they cannot alert the nurse about pain. The system currently under development, which uses haptics, would make the learning experience considerably more realistic, even telling the nurse when too much pressure was applied."

Comments

Limited Usefulness

[klausner]

As a retired paramedic who has stuck needles into literally thousands of veins, I can tell you that this kind of tool is of limited value. Even if they can exactly mimic the tactile sensations of a needle penetrating skin and then entering a vein, that's only part of the issue. A much bigger obstacle to be overcome is the social indoctrination that you don't go around stabbing people and making them bleed. Once most nursing/medical/paramedic students learn to just DO IT, their problems drop way off.

The traditional training method of having students practice on each other has a lot to reccommend it as a means of overcoming such reluctance. Anyway, a practice model would only get used in class a few times per student, and then they will be out assaulting real patients anyway. Increased training costs for limited benefit.