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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."
Maybe now my dentist can learn how to inject novocaine without stabbing me painfully 6 times :) (I just had $6k of dental work done... :( )
Ads? What ads?
It's simple, you just take a nice red Sharpie....
My wife had a plant safety class where they learned CPR from a paramedic who specializes in training. She had tattoed instructions on her arm how to do CPR, with an X on her wrist saying "Check here for pulse" and an X on her chest over her heart saying "Push here"
:)
People should come with operating instructions
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Last time I had blood taken, they let the trainee practice on my arm. She managed to spear through a major vein a few times, but never actually got in there. After making that vein completely useless, the head nurse came over and tried on the other arm. The trainee was still shaking, I'm not sure if she was nervous or just a shaker.
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I just gave blood yesterday and volunteered to be the guinea pig for a new trainee. I was her first human stick!
(She did great, but nevertheless, I would have felt better if she could have trained with one of these first.)
I swear, I looked like a total friggin' addict. I heard to wear sweaters to keep that crap covered up on my arms for like 2 years.
Apparently, citrus fruits make a good replacement for human veins. She spent a lot of time practicing on oranges, grapefruits and whatnot.
I hope, for all husbands and roommates everywhere, that these come out soon and that they're very very cheap.
-- "A chicken is an egg's way of making another egg."
I almost had the first post, but I was too busy using the virtual hand to give myself a virtual hand jo^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hback massage....
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My mother is a nurse. This will NEVER be as cheap, or as realistic, as having the students practice on each other, like she did in medical school.
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.
When I learned IV insertion we practiced on a loose-fitting concentric rubber tubes with liquid between them. The inner tube squirmed around about as much as a normal vein.
It's nice to see that they're getting more realistic.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
While I was in an ICU unit, the doc came by with some students. Since I have nice beefy arms and huge veins (the blood donation folks love me), the doc asked if I minded the students practicing on me.
Well, seeing that the trainees were young and cute, I said "sure" and let them stab me several times. Ok, they did pretty well, probably because their "patient" wasn't freaking out.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
I have a mole on my arm that reads "STAB HERE FOR VEIN". Seriously. Nice and well placed, all they have to do is come close and they'll get a perfect stick.
So this nurse in Indiana screws it up. She stabs THRU the vein. Blood sprays all over the tube. She gets another tube, stabs, misses, sprays again.
after the 5th stick I'm pale white and about to pass out... I get up to leave, and this old, black nurse comes in and says "Honey you sit yourself right down, i'll get it and you won't even know".
I raise my arm to protest, she grabs it and sticks it in one smooth motion, so smooth I never felt the needle.
Man I love that woman.