Part of the difficulty in training the public in how to respond to medical emergencies is that many don’t understand the human anatomy below the skin. Moreover, knowing what different conditions actually look like on the body is another problem. Knowing where arteries run and where muscles connect to bone, as well as how bruises, infections, and orthopedic injuries appear, can be helpful in recognizing and addressing common maladies.
Elizabeth Weissbrod, while working at the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine at the Uniformed Services University, had an idea to create tattoos that display the underlying muscles, bones, vessels, and the like, that can be stuck to the skin to help better learn how our bodies are strung together.
“The concept evolved from an event at the National Museum of Health and Medicine involving écorché painting on athletes,” said Weissbrod, in a press release. “It involves physically painting muscles on the skin of a model so viewers can connect structure and function to the underlying anatomy. Utilizing commercially available temporary tattoo paper, we were able to create accurate illustrations that we could quickly apply, decreasing cost and time in conducting this crucial training.”
This led to the Remedy Simulation Group licensing and now producing over one hundred different tattoos of various injuries and pathologies. The company is making them available to the general public to help with medical emergency preparedness. Halloween is also coming up, so these should play well at medical school parties next month.
Link: Remedy products page…