Cambrian students create doll with 3D heart, lungs to help medical learners at HSN

The hospital in Sudbury has a new life-like manikin in its simulation lab aimed at helping medical learners prepare for a specific surgery.

A college in Greater Sudbury has created a doll known as a ‘manikin’ with realistic anatomy that performs a key role in teaching how to perform life-saving procedures.

A simulation this week had a surgeon stabilizing a manikin suffering cardiac arrest caused by a stab wound to the chest. The team used a rare procedure known as thoracotomy.

The patient is a manikin, but its anatomy is realistic. The simulation allows learners to practice performing the procedure.

Thanks to a collaboration with Cambrian College, Health Sciences North (HSN) now has a new, life-like manikin to support learning.

“We’re actually able to get a beating heart inside the chest that learners need to repair in this particular circumstance -- they actually have fluid coming out of that heart,” said Alex Wood, manager of the Simulation Lab at HSN.

Beating heart, full ribcage

The beating heart and full rib cage inside the manikin were designed and built by engineering, computer programming and graphic arts students from Cambrian, through its Applied Research division.

“You need to access the heart and lung space quite urgently,” Wood said.

“It’s done through a lateral incision through the chest wall … through the skin, intercostal muscle layers spreading the ribs apart cutting through the plural liner and then accessing that heart and lung space.”

The students used 3D printers to make the anatomically correct structures, switching materials to create the area on the manikin where learners would perform the procedure.

“That popping you hear when you actually are cracking ribs, you get that from a filament stop printer that you wouldn’t have got with our resin printer,” said Mike Commito, director of Cambrian’s research and development.

“They made the changes using the 3D printing equipment they had here and that gives them a more realistic feel when the learners are going in through the ribs.”

Instructors can watch in the control room on the other side of a one-way mirror to make their evaluations.

Dr. Pankaj Bhatia, HSN’s chief of staff and a general surgeon himself, said the thoracotomy procedure is rare. Some medical professionals might never perform it, but they still need to know how.

“The whole point of this trainer is to not only recreate that scenario of realism, but to also more globally ensure that our learners understand when it’s appropriate to use and when it’s not appropriate to use,” Bhatia said.

Although there are other thoracotomy trainers on the market, Wood said none are as realistic as Cambrian’s.