Enhancing Medical Education Through Task Trainer Innovation

New research at Carle Illinois College of Medicine shows the materials used inside task trainers may impact the quality and cost of simulated medical education. The work identified that the use of gelatin enhances the learning experience and could lead to cheaper costs as compared to silicone or plastic fillers.

Task trainers are a valuable simulation tool that mimic human anatomy and are used for hands-on medical training.  “Learning with task trainers is an integral part of the student experience,” said CI MED researcher and Simulation Operations Specialist Isaac Ryals. “However, most task trainers have not been improved in years, some in decades. The only thing that has changed is the price. Gelatin task trainers can change both cost and performance.” 

Gelatin has several properties that affect how strong and squishy it is, including strength, viscosity and melting temperature. The higher-fidelity a task trainer is, the better the student experience. In addition, gelatin task trainers can be melted down and recast after several uses instead of being replaced after each use.

While the innovation is still in development, students at CI MED and the greater medical education community stand to benefit.

“If task trainers can be made cheaper and reusable, then more funds can be allocated for more trainers,” Ryals said. “As education costs increase, innovation will only become more and more necessary. The reusability of gelatin also has far-reaching implications for variability in the skin textures and tones we can create as well, something that is desperately needed in [Simulation Education].”

The research is being led by Shandra Jamison, Carle Illinois College of Medicine JUMP Simulation Center Manager and Isaac Ryals, Simulation Operations Specialist, who co-authored a research paper titled "Gelatin Material Properties and Their Role in Increasing Medical Task Trainer Fidelity,” in collaboration with David Wilcoski, Rahul Sridharan, Sandra Edward, and Professor Holly Golecki. The paper was recently accepted for presentation at the Advances in Medical Devices session during the prestigious Design of Medical Devices Conference on April 29 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.