The Debut of the Advanced Surgical Blood Pump System

When stepping into a simulation featuring the Cut Suit®, students at RVU know to expect at least one thing: blood. Fake blood, that is. Depending on the severity of the injury or surgical skill being simulated, blood might only stain gloves and gowns or it might slowly spread across the operating room floor (big yikes!). The system by which blood is pumped through the Cut Suit® was recently upgraded to allow the Office of Simulation in Medicine & Surgery (SIMS) to fine-tune blood flow to the Cut Suit® in real-time.

Members of surrounding healthcare systems joined the Office of SIMS faculty, staff, and a pre-doctoral fellow for a training session on Strategic Operations’ (STOPS) Advanced Surgical Blood Pump System (ASBPS). The training on the ASBPS, which was streamed to both campuses and recorded, makes RVU the second medical school in the country to purchase and receive this new system.

The pump system was designed for use with the Cut Suit®, which is also manufactured by STOPS, and mimics an anesthesia cart in appearance, with a computer perched on top of a cabinet that houses the pumps and the blood buckets. Using the computer or remote control, an operator is able to control blood flow for up to four separate wounds and the pulse rate can be adjusted from 0 to 200+ beats per minutes.

The pump system also has the ability to be paused mid-surgery, an ideal feature for a teaching environment. Advanced features include vital sign software and a suction system that recycles blood back into reservoirs for disposal or reuse.

The system was most recently tested during a resident abdominal trauma lab at Sky Ridge Medical Center in Colorado. The Office of SIMS anticipates that the system will continue to provide opportunities for surgical simulations for RVU students and residents in the newly remodeled Healthcare Simulation Center.

This article was originally published in the September 2021 issue of the Vista View Newsletter, which can be found here.