Photo © Melanie Stetson Freeman / Christian Science Monitor / The Image Works.

In 1958, after pulling his drowning son from water and clearing his airways, Norwegian doll manufacturer Asmund S. Laerdal was asked to develop a manikin to teach others how to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The doll became known as “Resusci Anne” or “CPR Annie,” and I bet every nursing student in the 60s and 70s made her acquaintance. (Read an interesting story on how Resusci Anne got her face.)

I vividly recall meeting Resusci Anne in our school’s clinical lab, which had six hospital beds with over-the-bed tray tables and curtain dividers to simulate Bellevue Hospital’s open wards. Anne lay stiffly in bed, eyes open and pupils nonresponsive to light or accommodation. We practiced bed baths, positioning, and making a bed, with her silently lying there, challenging us to do it neatly.

The evolution of simulation education and its uses.

But how things have changed! In AJN’s August issue, our special feature, “The Changing Landscape of Simulation-Based Education,” describes how simulation-based education has moved from academia to the practice setting, and from the simple Resusci Anne model to high-fidelity complex machines that can be programmed to mimic a variety of crises.

And while simulation is now an accepted mainstay in undergraduate education, it’s also being used more frequently in the clinical setting, as “training for clinicians focuses on teamwork, crisis resource management, and error prevention.” (See our AJN Reports on the topic.)

An important part of simulation training are the briefings that should happen before, as demonstrated in this video, and after the simulated exercise. The August article and accompanying videos will be free to access until the end of the month.