FNP Student Assessment - Oozing Wounds

Description:

Students in the Family Nurse Practitioner program at Bellin College were being assessed on their sterile dressing changes and wound assessment/care. I worked with the faculty and the Health Science Resource Center Coordinator to develop moulage (makeup application to simulate realism) for practice and testing that would allow students to cut and probe a wound, assess it for abnormalities, and dress it with bandages using sterile technique.

Objectives:

• Create a realistic wound that could be assessed for abnormalities. Skin should appear bruised and raised and feel realistic when palpated.
• Allow medication to be injected via needle stick to surrounding "tissue".
• Wound should ooze with puss when cut open and have a slightly bad odor to simulate infection and provide opportunity for discussion of proper patient teaching and bedside manner when working in unpleasant situations.
• Do it twice for 20 students, once for practice and demonstration during a class session and a second time for testing. We built 40 wounds over the course of a week.

Project Details:

While new to the medical field, this was my 3rd project involving moulage so by this time I had a better understanding of the experiences that could be created with the medium. It took some trial and error to figure out how to make the oozing puss of the right color, consistency, and odor that could come out of the wound in a realistic way.

A mix of baby food, paint, fake blood, were used in the final product which was injected into the tip of water balloons and secured with rubber bands to provide enough pressure that they would squirt out some of the contents when pierced.

Fake skin and bruising was then applied over the top of the balloons, which were hidden so that the students needed to correctly locate the "infection" by touch before injecting medication or cutting into the "patient".

The end result was a realistic looking wound that could be palpated, receive injection, and ooze with blood and puss when cut.

The students really enjoyed the experience and the faculty remarked that the wounds were very realistic and that students were more engaged and were better prepared for their assessment and reflection than before.