When Daniel is wheeled into the room, his left leg is noticeably absent.
The hi-tech $150,000 manikin, who on other days will be known by a different name and suffer other medical mishaps, is groaning loudly.
The paramedic who wheels him into the simulation suite announces to the assembled staff that the 31-year-old suffered a “blast injury”.
Another person, who suffered similar injuries, is “en route”.
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Daniel can blink, breathe and bleed – helping create a realistic scenario for training.
The paramedic runs through an extensive list of Daniel’s ailments, which include blast injuries to his abdomen and chest.
Medical staff cut through his shirt, which reveals a blood-stained chest that rises and falls with each pained breath.
A tourniquet was applied to the leg wherever the “blast” happened. Now medical team work to assess and stabilise Daniel, who begins screaming in pain within a few minutes.
“Are you alright there,” a doctor asks him.
A pained Daniel later tells them “I can’t breathe”, prompting staff to correctly identify that his left lung has collapsed.
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Doctors and nurses listen to a paramedic listing the injuries that Daniel suffered in the blast.
Daniel is given an intubation, with other procedures over the 30-minute intensive training period including a chest drain and stemming the blood flow from his bleeding leg.
“They did a great job ... and the patient survived,” Dr Ohad Dar tells Stuff once it’s over. Dar is an emergency doctor at Dunedin Hospital and the co-director of the Otago Clinical Skills Laboratories, where the simulation takes place.
During the exercise, he’s based in a control room observing behind a two-way mirror. Several of his colleagues are on computers and listening to what is unfolding.
The doctors and nurses talk calmly as they describe what is happening, and listen when the patient’s priorities are listed.
The relief when the intensive simulation ends is obvious.
“Thank God,” one says.
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A manikin costs up to $150,000 but is an invaluable training tool.
Dar said it was just as important for staff to discuss what they did, or didn’t do, in a debrief immediately after the training simulation.
Daniel was essential for their training. The $150,000 dummy could moan, talk, breathe, cry, blink – with the eyes even able to react to light – and bleed.
The latter is demonstrated when his tourniquet is removed and spurts of blood (in this case red dye) pump from the dismembered wound.
The training facility has other manikin, but none with the same capabilities as Daniel, who even comes with “bespoke packages”, Dar said before listing the gruesome add-ons.
This kind of training is important to ensure staff have ‘‘the skill-set to deal with emergencies in the future’’.
“Training never stops,” Dar, who is originally from Israel, says.
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The training manikin is used at the Otago Clinical Skills Laboratories to ensure medical professionals have the skills to deal with future emergencies.
The use of healthcare simulation has increased in New Zealand in recent years, and it is not uncommon for larger hospitals to have similar simulation training.
In Dunedin, it’s a joint venture between the hospital and the University of Otago’s medical school. Their collaboration is set to improve further as the training centre is set for a major upgrade as part of the Dunedin Hospital rebuild currently under way.
Dar says there’s a lot of scrutiny on medical staff about the service they provide the New Zealand public.
“I want the public to know how much healthcare staff value that, and we want to provide good care.
“We want to be proud of our own skills, proud of the team we work with, and proud of the service and care we provide our patients in our community.”
