The “patient” lay in bed, eyes closed, motionless, still.
At the press of a button, she coughs, comes to life and her chest rises and falls with breath.
The high-tech, super-realistic new mannequin is allowing students at the Alcorn Career and Technology Center (ACTC) to gain hands-on experience in medical skills.
“I set the blood pressure and [students] can check it,” ACTC health science teacher Tila Johnson said. “I can set all vital signs. She has radial pulses, brachial pulses, and carotid pulses. She has got pedal pulses. I can control the rate and the rhythm. I can make it out of rhythm. I can control the depth.”
The “living” mannequin has lifelike skin and hair, eyes that can be changed to reflect health or illness and can be adjusted to reflect diseases or conditions, even death. The mannequin resides at the Alcorn Career and Technical Center as a result of a $45,000 grant from Accelerate MS and the Mississippi Department of Economic Development.
“The receipt of this grant funding enabled us to update and enhance our health sciences program through the purchase of a simulator mannequin for our health sciences program,” ACTC director John Anderson said. “This innovative technology will allow our students to practice clinical skills, critical thinking and decision making in a controlled and safe environment.”
The mannequin can cough or moan in four voice settings: old man, old woman, young man, young woman. It can display symptoms of asthma, overdose, collapsed lung and many other diseases and disorders.
“This is a game changer,” Johnson said. “I’m not gonna lie, I get students in here every year. They want to be in this class. There is a lot of bookwork and learning about the body so that we can understand how things work and then do them.
“They get a little disappointed when they walk in and say ‘When are we going to play with the dummies?’ Well, in all honesty, we’ve got dummies in here that we don’t do a whole lot to because we need live people. We can practice on each other – we check blood pressure, we take pulses, temperature. We learn on each other.”
The mannequin allows students to practice using IVs, nasal-gastric tubes, catheter tubes and other invasive procedures.
“This will actually give them the hands-on practice of some invasive procedures,” she said.
All of the electronics in the mannequin are stored in a way that they avoid contact with liquid and artificial bodily fluids.
Money for the program was distributed through the EquipMS program through House Bill 588 as the Mississippi K-12 Workforce Development grant program. The funding was aimed at manufacturing, healthcare, information technology, economic development priorities and construction and agriculture.
“Successful career preparation doesn’t begin after a student receives a high school diploma,” said Accelerate MS deputy director for strategy and programs Courtney Taylor. “Our state’s leadership is showing a strong commitment to strengthening our workforce development at all levels and this investment opens doors for students to acquire skills earlier and in more meaningful ways tied to local opportunities.”
Joel Counce