Implantable contraceptive devices that slowly release the hormone progestin under the skin have become quite popular with women around the world. They can be taken by women who are contraindicated for estrogen, work continuously without sterilization, and when removed the contraceptive effect goes away quickly. While not expensive in themselves, the implants require a properly trained professional to inject them, subcutaneously under the skin while avoiding the fat layer. That’s why a student team at Johns Hopkins University created a training kit for clinicians in the developing world to learn how to do these injections, helping to make this kind of contraception more common in even remote parts of the globe.
The Contraceptive Implant Training Tool Kit (CITT Kit) comes in two varieties: a model arm that can be used on its own for injection training and a wrap band that can be worn by another person over their arm for a somewhat more realistic experience. The skin, fat, and muscle tissue of the arm is represented by layers of silicone that have different densities, similar to real tissue. The kit also provides navigational landmarks that help to identify and remember where exactly the injection needs to happen. The cheap silicone layers can be swapped out for new ones once the material is damaged and training can continue with other clinicians wanting to refine this skill.
“The student inventors came up with a novel and exciting idea of using replaceable training pods,” said Ricky Lu, technical director for reproductive health and family planning at Jhpiego, a nonprofit Johns Hopkins University affiliate. “These pods have placebo implants embedded to simulate a range of removal challenges, from easy pop-outs to deeply located and adherent implants requiring additional skills to extract them. This is critical to have in clinical training where removal cases for practice may be limited during a short training course.”
Source: Johns Hopkins…
