By MaKenzie Purdom
Launch Blue

While the world of medical education has evolved rapidly, and the improvements have been extraordinary, gaps remain when it comes to giving students in medical education the most realistic, applicable, and inclusive training possible to prepare them for real life situations. Because of this, it can be difficult for students and new graduates to get the training they need. DeShana Collett, PhD, Co-Innovator of MediSkin, aims to close one of these gaps and give her Physician Associate students a more realistic, effective approach to learning suturing techniques, injections, needle-guided ultrasounds, and phlebotomy. 

“We teach foundational technical skills and competencies that we believe every student coming out of the program should have. These are the required basic skills,” said Collett when asked about the courses she has taught in the University of Kentucky College of Health Science’s Physician Assistant program (UKPA) program. Collett has been a professor in the UKPA program for 16 years and counting. One course she has taught consistently over the years includes a laboratory section that incorporates many of the clinical skills required for all physician assistant students. Throughout this laboratory course, Collett teaches her students all about the essentials of a history and physical examination as well as clinical interpretations and management—from clinical methods and hands-on techniques for electrocardiograms and X-rays, to technical skills in suturing, incision and drainage of abscesses, needle biopsies, and injections.

But Collett noticed a problem. The problem did not lie with the course material or her teaching style. Rather, the problem arose from the course materials, or lack thereof. There was no “real skin like” product for students to use when practicing clinical skills. 

“Everyone should have adequate practice and understanding of wound closure techniques before they ever attempt to apply these skills on a patient,” Collett said. “There are a lot of complications that can occur without a firm understanding of all the procedures related to this technique. Many programs use different task trainers to train students, such as banana peels  or pig’s feet for practice, but those do not really mimic human skin.”

In Collett’s experience, pig’s feet were the most comparable material to human skin. Even so, nothing mimicked human skin enough to give students an idea of the true feel, texture, and necessary pressure in applying the techniques they were learning to the skin of real patients. 

Through years of trial and error, Collett and her colleague, Samuel Powdrill, PhD., sought out to create a more humanlike, hyper-realistic skin material that could be used in the classroom and the clinical setting. The duo came up with an innovation they called MediSkin, a humanlike, low fidelity medical task trainer that trains students on medical techniques.“

If I were to make a product, what properties would it require and how would it be different from what’s already on the market?” Collett asked herself when she first started thinking about the creation of what is now MediSkin. 

And from there, this unique education tool was born. MediSkin is different from other classroom-grade skin imitators in numerous ways. The most prominent difference is that MediSkin features all layers of the skin, down to the muscle, and it stretches like real skin. It is also multi-use, having the ability to withstand injections, various forms of suturing, and the incision and drainage of abscesses filled with lotion. MediSkin can even be used for needle-guided ultrasound practice, as it allows tubing to run through the skin and allows ultrasound technology to view all layers of the skin.

“There is nothing else on the market right now that provides one multi-use innovation,” Collett explained. Not only is MediSkin multi-use, but through testing and discovery, the team has found that this product as several market applications, as well. 

“This is all about education, and training our students to really be appreciative of the diversity that we have amongst us. I think that is probably the most important thing that sets us apart – it's the most important thing for me. It’s what I get excited about,” Collett said. 

In addition to MediSkin itself, Collett and Powdrill also create and upload informational videos online to accompany the skin-like innovation. 

And MediSkin is getting rave reviews in the classroom, with students even going as far as to ask when Collett and Powdrill will be making more. Collett has seen immense improvement in student performance as compared to when they work on pig’s feet. 

As far as the future of MediSkin, Collett envisions it expanding vastly in the future. She hopes to see it become a common innovation for students pursuing a career in the medical field at schools and universities across the country. She looks forward to adding new innovation features, including different hair types.  There is even potential for MediSkin to expand into veterinary medicine. Regarding the immediate future, Collett and Powdrill are open to finding opportunities for an established company to license the technology and manufacture/distribute as part of the company’s existing product line.

When Collett reflected on MediSkin’s participation in the Launch Blue UAccel program she described the impact as “inspiring and significant.” 

“The accelerator program provided the necessary foundational knowledge I needed as a new inventor but it also inspired me as an inventor,” she said. “The entire program was meaningful and engaging–learning and walking through different steps from developing a value proposition and identifying business opportunities  and learning from different individuals and experts. Particularly developing and delivering a pitch for my minimum viable product made me realize that this innovation has so much potential.”

MediSkin is already making a huge impact on the students at the University of Kentucky, and the innovators, as well as those of us here at Launch Blue, know it has the potential to impact medical education around the world.