Hollywood SFX makers turn to the OR to help train docs

When critical care physicians at Boston Children’s Hospital practice cannulating an infant going on cardiopulmonary support, they’ll no longer have to cut through hard plastic mannequins with tubes for blood vessels. Instead, they’ll puncture a soft layer of realistic baby skin, dissect through subcutaneous fat and spread muscles that look and feel like the real thing.

They’ll insert the cannula into an internal jugular vein and carotid artery that are thin and flexible, after dissecting through their covering sheath. As they advance the cannula, the blood will have the right viscosity.

These mannequins are not your father’s Resusci-Anne. They’re the creation of the special make-up effects company Fractured FX, whose current credits include Cinemax’s The Knick, and Boston Children’s simulator program, SIMPeds. The models, or “simulators,” allow medical personnel to practice and rehearse tricky or complex medical procedures without any risk to patients.

“This is the nexus of medicine and art, surgery and cinema,” says SIMPeds Director Peter Weinstock, MD, PhD.

From horror flicks to pediatric surgery

Los Angeles-based Fractured FX won an Emmy this fall for American Horror Story: Freak Show, but its work on The Knick — about a New York hospital in the early 1900s, with high-fidelity surgical recreations — is what drew Weinstock’s attention. Boston Children’s and Fractured FX began discussions in 2014, and the studio began prototyping two simulators earlier this year together with SIMPeds’ SIMEngineering division.

“A lot of us had aspirations in medicine, and have collaborated with prosthesiologists to help improve prosthetics artistically,” says Fractured FX CEO Justin Raleigh. “We wanted to take our skills in special effects to try and help people.”

Read the full post on Vector: Hollywood SFX take medical training to a new level of realism

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