When it comes to conducting newborn physical assessments and measuring infant vital signs, experience is essential. After all, the more opportunities healthcare students have to practice these skills, the better they’ll be at taking real infants’ vital signs — and more importantly, gauging whether their pediatric patients are experiencing symptoms that need to be addressed. With our Infant Vital Signs Trainer, your students can practice measuring and documenting the vital signs associated with 15 common pediatric scenarios so they can interact correctly and confidently with real patients. Keep reading to meet the subject matter expert who chose the scenarios. You’ll learn how this trainer can help your students get the experience they need for on-the-job success.
It Starts With a Realistic Trainer
About the size of a newborn, our Infant Vital Signs Trainer is the “youngest” nursing manikin we offer. This medium-fidelity trainer lets students practice taking basic infant vital signs and conducting newborn physical assessments, including blood pressure and auscultation:
In fact, the accompanying RealityScope connects to any stethoscope to let students hear sounds specifically engineered to sound correct through a stethoscope, and only when placed over a corresponding auscultation site. This way, students can get used hearing the heart, lung and bowel sounds they’ll be listening for in real life.
Additionally, the included curriculum includes four lessons. You’ll get detailed steps of activities, time and materials needed and student handouts. Students will learn about auscultation, blood pressure, vital signs and physical assessments of infants.
The trainer includes several tools for conducting newborn physical assessments, like a blood pressure cuff and gauge, pulse oximeter and thermometer. It comes with eye dilation add-ons and a bulging fontanelle insert that are used in several of the scenarios to further challenge student assessment skills. It also includes a RealityScope for practicing auscultation, a tablet with app for programming the scenarios, and a quick start guide.
Introducing James Walker, MD
Dr. James Walker, MD, recently retired from practicing as a family physician in Western Wisconsin. One of his primary areas was obstetrics. During our interview, he proudly informed us that over his more than 40-year career, he delivered 2,250 babies. Dr. Walker worked with pediatric intensivist, Dr. Eric Gunnoe, to write a combination of normal and abnormal scenarios so students could experience a realistic variety of infant vital signs.
“You have to define what normal is so you know what abnormal is,” he told us. “You want scenarios that show what things would normally be like, as well as ones that show examples of infections. So you want fever, with and without shock, etc., so students know what to look for.”
15 Scenarios for Better Newborn Physical Assessments
Use the tablet and app to give your students practice measuring the infant vital signs associated with:
- Healthy baby
- Febrile baby – No Shock
- Febrile baby – In Shock
- Bronchiolitis
- Bronchiolitis and apnea
- Non-accidental trauma
- Croup
- Hypothermic newborn
- Bacterial pneumonia
- Cold septic shock
- Bilious emesis
- Meningitis
- Simple pneumothorax
- Congenital heart disease with murmur
- Still’s murmur
Choose a scenario using the app, then follow the directions in the quick start guide. The trainer will exhibit the vital signs associated with the selected scenario, and students can measure as needed:
“These are the kinds of scenarios that we thought would summarize the major problems that would happen with a baby,” said Dr. Walker. “They’ll teach you what normal is, but then they’ll teach you some of the most significant kinds of abnormalities that will help in terms of making a diagnosis and providing the best possible care for the baby.”
More resources
- Learn more about our Infant Vital Signs Trainer and the curriculum that accompanies it, or request a personalized quote
- Did you know that the RealityScope included with our Infant Vital Signs Trainer is the same one used in our Auscultation Trainers? Listen to the realistic sounds, and learn more, in this blog
- This new trainer is one of over a dozen new training tools for health science programs. Explore them all!
