Fabrication of a nursing manikin overlay for simulation of chest drainage management

Medical manikins are a type of patient simulator used to train medical staff. The benefits of using a medical manikin simulator include the suspension of disbelief, simultaneous team and individual learning, allowable failure, personalized scenarios, frequent repetition and a focus on the needs of the learner rather than the patient. Unfortunately, one of the limitations of medical manikins is that they cannot simulate every problem that medical staff comes across. The SimMan (Laerdal) manikins do not have the ability to simulate when excess air or fluid is in the pleural space of the lung or thorax, the drainage of which must be managed by nurses. These three symptoms are called a pneumothorax, pleural effusion and excess thoracic blood, respectively. The purpose of this research was to create an overlay for the SimMan manikin to simulate a pneumothorax, pleural effusion or excess of thoracic blood for nurses to learn and practice responsibilities during chest drainage. The process began by obtaining a scan of a manikin from the Milwaukee School of Engineering nursing department. Simultaneously developed, a pneumothorax, pleural effusion and excess thoracic blood simulator became the basis for the layout of the overlay. Beginning with the computer scan, a mold of the overlay was shaped using computer automated design programs. This mold was customized to accommodate all necessary components and ports of the simulator. The mold was printed using a stereolithography (SLA) machine and created by layering silicone to make the housing for the simulator. The overlay resulting from this research is currently being used to train nursing students at the Milwaukee School of Engineering.