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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – University Medical Center has purchased lifesize computerized robots of a pregnant woman and her infant to teach nurses, medical students and residents about caring for mothers and babies during a difficult labor and childbirth.
UMC used a $40,000 grant to purchase the two robotic mannequins, dubbed “Noelle” and “Baby Hal,” from Miami-based Guamard Scientic (www.guamard.com)
Medical and nursing schools, as well as teaching hospitals like UMC, increasingly are turning to high-tech simulations to train health professionals.
“The best part about Noelle is that she gives our students a little experience before they care for a woman in labor,” said Heather Reed, MD, assistant professor in The University of Arizona Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, who helped write the grant application with assistant professor Amy Mitchell, MD.
Noelle can be programmed to simulate a long or short labor. A motor pushes a lifelike plastic baby out of the birth canal and even expels an ersatz placenta. She can simulate a variety of childbirth complications, from a breech delivery to hemorrhage to the baby being born with the umbilical cord wrapped around its neck.
Noelle’s pulse and respiration rises and falls, she urinates and bleeds, and students can practice inserting an IV, intubating her airway, resuscitating her though CPR or delivering her baby with forceps or a vacuum.
Noelle even talks. “It’s really hurting now!” and “The baby is coming!” are among dozens of her pre-programmed vocalizations.
The blonde automaton recently made her debut to a group of third-year students from the UA College of Medicine in UMC’s Labor and Delivery Unit. Each student got to deliver Noelle’s plastic baby as Dr. Reed and longtime UMC labor and delivery nurse Sharon Leahy, RN, directed the students on how to measure the mother for cervical dilation and effacement and where to place their hands as the baby emerged from the birth canal.
During the exercise, “Baby Hal” rested in an isolette nearby. The lifelike newborn robot can be programmed to change colors from a healthy pink to the dusky blue of oxygen deficiency, and to simulate seizures, allowing doctors and nurses to practice their resuscitation skills.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said UA medical student Garrett Pacheco after delivering Noelle’s healthy baby robot. “It definitely helps to practice these techniques on a mannequin instead of learning them when we meet our first patient.”
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