Workshop creates gory wounds

It’s not often USQ staff are instructed on how to create gruesome injuries.

But when a dedicated group of Nursing and Sciences technicians gathered to update their skills in the art of moulage earlier this month, it proved to be a painless, fascinating and creative experience.

The workshop, run by Pearlau TraumaSim P/L Director, Nola Pearce, demonstrated to staff the latest techniques in creating mock injuries for training purposes.

'The techniques that the group learned are taken from the most robust film and television special effects techniques, combined with clinical knowledge,' Ms Pearce said.

'This will enable the students to work on realistic simulated wounds over and over again. I think the group had a lot of fun and created some fantastic work. It was a pleasure to train such an enthusiastic group.'

USQ Nursing and Midwifery Laboratory Manager, Ms Angela Teys, said the workshop techniques would be invaluable in their future work with simulation creation.

'These techniques are much simpler, much quicker, more realistic and more reproducible than anything we have done in the past and will save us technical time,' Ms Teys said.

The University’s team of Nursing technicians create hundreds of life-like abrasions, wounds, abdominal injuries and burns on simulated skin for Nursing students to practice dressing and suturing techniques.

Equipped with their favourite 'wound ingredients’: sorbolene, food colouring, special effects makeup, liquid silicone and liquid vinyl, they attempt to make the wounds and burns look as realistic as possible.

The moulage workshop was made possible through the USQ Learning and Teaching Performance Fund.

Faculty of Sciences Associate Dean (Learning and Teaching), Lorelle Burton, said the resulting creations from the workshop would provide real opportunities for students to engage in authentic learning and skills development in a proactive way in the classroom.