Although at first it might seem creepy, the story that Kelly Eckerman did for KMBC-TV about the training method used by nurses at St. Mary's Medical Center is actually a very practical solution to quite a hard-to-train aspect.

"No one's getting hurt here. We can do 10 deliveries a day here with (the doll) and she won't get tired. No matter how many times we intubate Hal, he's going to be OK," simulation trainer Dianne Schaefer said. "So we can practice all those things that are very intrusive to people in real world - we can just do that over and over again."

As you can probably see in the photo from GizmoWatch, the robot baby is pretty realistic and it is designed to act sick as a human baby would, which helps nurses rescue babies that have problems when coming into this world. Because Hal can reproduce any type of medical emergency related to new born babies, the nurses that train at St. Mary's Medical Center are developing important skills faster and in a “cleaner” way. Thus, developing superior skills compared with nurses that do not have access to such technology.

Although the training consists mostly of aiding the new-born, the nurses at St. Mary's Medical Center from Blue Springs, Kentucky City are also training so that they dissipate the discomfort of the mother during pregnancy. Hal responds if the nurses are acting according to the right medical procedures and vice-versa.

"It really helps all of our team members to work well together in a less stressful situation and helps prepare us for a real emergency that might happen like this," nurse Diana Drake said.

Besides improving their skills during refresher courses with the pregnancy simulator, the nurses are very pleased because of the decreased response times that they start acting after a few simulated births.


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