A teaching tool in spinal anesthesia; 2003;71:29-36, PDF

R egional anesthetic procedures are significantly more difficult to learn than basic manual skills that are necessary for a general anesthetic. Currently, no studies have been done to determine whether there is enhanced learning by measuring the difference in the number of successful spinal placement attempts, the time it takes to place the spinal needle, and the time when proficiency is reached when comparing the use of the newly designed spinal model vs the traditional spinal model. In addition, no studies have been done that examine nurse anesthetists’ or nurse anesthesia participants’ learning process for spinal needle placement. A new teaching tool was evaluated to determine if the use of a spinal model allowing visual combined with haptic (sense of touch) sense was more effective than the traditional spinal model using primarily the haptic sense.