Learning CPR on manikins without breasts puts women's lives at risk

[cbabe]

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/nov/21/learning-cpr-on-manikins-without-breasts-puts-womens-lives-at-risk-study-finds

Learning CPR on manikins without breasts puts women’s lives at risk, study finds

Analysis of training models on global market found all had flat torsos with just one having a breast overlay

Natasha May Health reporter
Thu 21 Nov 2024 09.00 EST

Most CPR manikins don’t have breasts, which contributes towards women being less likely to receive life-saving first aid from bystanders, a study has found.

The study led by Dr Rebecca Szabo, the lead of the Gandel Simulation Service at the Royal Women’s hospital in Melbourne, analysed all manikin models on the global market designed for adult cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training.

Of the 20 different manikins, the researchers found all them had flat torsos with only one model having a breast overlay. Eight were identified as male and seven had no gender specified.

The study, published in the journal Health Promotion International, highlights the findings as an equity issue with implications for the human right to health.

Australian research published in June found women are less likely to receive life-saving CPR after cardiac arrest and less likely to survive.

… more …

(Another one of it’s a man’s world after all.)

[Hope22]

1. This just really brings the tears!

All of this is really too much.

[bottomofthehill]

2. When I was teaching CPR in the 80's and 90's we uses Resusi Anne

The training manakin was a female and often when establishing responsiveness I would hear people shaking her and saying Annie wake up or Annie are you ok. I am a little surprised that they are all flat chested now. Anne was no Dolly Parton, but she was not completely flat either.

[Americanme]

3. Yes

In all of my first aid classes, we had Resusci-Annie and Choking Charlie.

[OldBaldy1701E]

4. Yup.

I used to have one. She was 'retired' from training use and I used her in my haunted house.

I took first aid courses a few times in my life and every time it was an 'Annie'. I don't think I ever used or even saw a 'Resusi-Adam'.

[cbabe]

5. ANNIE...ANNIE... ARE YOU OK? RESUSCI ANNE Annie...Annie... Are You OK? The evolution of Resusci Anne

https://emsmuseum.org/collections/archives/education-simulation-and-training/resusci-annie/

ANNIE…ANNIE… ARE YOU OK? RESUSCI ANNE
Annie…Annie… Are You OK? The evolution of Resusci Anne

…

The first Resusci-Annie was developed by Asmund Laerdal, a successful toy maker, and Bjorn Lind, an anaesthesiologist. In the 1950s, Laerdal was manufacturing imitation wounds for Red Cross first aid training in Norway and Sweden, when he learned of the new CPR resuscitation technique, and envisioned life-sized mannequins as the ideal training tool and he set to work.

Resusci-Annie debuted in September 1960 in Stavanger, Norway at the First International Symposium on Resuscitation. The symposium was attended by US EMS pioneers Drs. Peter Safar, James Elam, Archer Gordon, Henning Ruben, and Rudolf Frey. Dr. Safar and Dr. Elam began working with Laerdal and his team refining Annie.

… more …

(Rescue Annie went through a change, I guess.)

[cksmithy]

6. I took at least 2 CPR classes,

in the late 1990's and in 2006 in the central valley in California, and the manikins did not have breasts. (I had to take take and pass the state test to keep my teaching creditial up to date.) There was no mention of any differences between male and female, and no discussion of how to treat a women with breasts. I once read in a medical article, that the tests for estrogen replacement were all performed on men. Some things never change.