Meet Victoria, the brand new mama to be, who just happens to be, a mannequin. She's helping Stephanie Amaya and other students here at the University of Arizona College of Medicine with the procedures on delivering a baby. "It's pretty cool," said Stephanie. "It feels real. And you get to learn a lot." That's because Victoria is no dummy. You see, this mannequin mama is the latest and greatest high-tech tool teaching these med students the birds and bees of birthing. "The mannequin's talking to you," said Stephanie. "The mannequin's yelling at you. You do feel like it's real. Even though you know it's plastic. But you do get those emotions." Plus, Victoria delivers a variety of situations to Stephanie and the other med students. Every time this gal gets ready to bear down with the baby, the instructors are behind the scenes, controlling her heart rate, blood pressure, the speed of the delivery and more. They can even create emergency scenes. "We look at how we had to learn previously," says Dr. Maria Manriquez, an instructor at the School of Medicine. "That was actually on the patients and it may not have been best to have somebody who'd never done a delivery." So now after Stephanie leaves this classroom for the delivery room, she'll be much more comfortable with her labor of love. source
