Not Just for Surgery

Training for procedures carried out by nurses and other medical professionals is also being computerized. Beginning last fall, for example, nursing students at the State University of New York in Plattsburgh began using software from High Techsplanations (HT), Inc., a Rockville, MD software developer, to learn how to stick a needle in a vein. Students take a stainless steel needle in hand, aim it at a vein at the crook of an artificial elbow, and press down. On a computer screen they see the skin dimple under the pressure of the needle. Pressing past the resistance, the skin gives under the sharp point and they feel the breakthrough and see the puncture as the needle slides into the arm. They feel another, weaker point of resistance at the wall of the vein. If they have aimed right and delivered the right amount of pressure, the needle will slip into the vein and they'll be rewarded for a good hit when a red "flashback" of blood flows into the hollow steel needle on the screen.