The life-like manakin will be used to train student healthcare professionals on procedures.
A “realistic” obese manakin has been developed to help educate further nurses and healthcare professionals.
Aston University College of Health and Life Sciences and Simulation Man have jointly launched a new, overweight female manikin to train nursing, pharmacy and medical students.
R42, so named as it represents the 42% of the US population who are overweight, is a realistic shape, rather than having a flat back, to better simulate an overweight patient, and has breasts.
According to the latest statistics from NHS England, 63.8% of adults in England are overweight, with 25.9% of those classified as living with obesity.
The life-like manakin will be used to train student healthcare professionals on procedures such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), intubation, inserting IV lines and catheterisation, and manual handling.
Manakins used to train workers are usually flat, however, R42 has an has an internal skeleton to make it more realistic to move and handle.
Looks and feels realistic.
Co-creators Professor Liz Moores and Jacob Rahman at Simulation Man say they believe that R42 is the world’s first overweight training manikin that looks and feels realistic.
Professor Moores explains, “Lots of patients are overweight so it’s useful to have experience with overweight patients. As a female obese manikin, this manikin also has large breasts. We want our students to know how to resuscitate people irrespective of body type.
“Whilst diversity in manikins has already extended to skin tone, age and more recently certain disabilities, there are no realistic looking and feeling obese manikins available in the UK. The development of R42 is really important.”
Rahman says: “This will be a global product. I think we have thus far really underestimated the impact and global reach this will have. The key aspect is students will learn how to have empathy with obese patients, how to be inclusive, and to make sure that they are aware of unconscious bias. There is a case for every medical and nursing university in the world to have one.”
The first R42 manikin will be installed at Aston University for students to use before the end of 2023, with a second in early 2024.
