RETAIN: a Neonatal Resuscitation Trainer Built in an Undergraduate Video-Game Class

Abstract

Approximately ten percent of newborns require some help with their breathing at birth. About one percent require extensive assistance at birth which needs to be administered by trained personnel. Neonatal resuscitation is taught through a simulation based training program in North America. Such a training methodology is cost and resource intensive which reduces its availability thereby adversely impacting skill acquisition and retention. We implement and present RETAIN (REsuscitation TrAIning for Neonatal residents) -a video game to complement the existing neonatal training. Being a video game, RETAIN runs on ubiquitous off-the-shelf hardware and can be easily accessed by trainees almost anywhere at their convenience. Thus we expect RETAIN to help trainees retain and retrain their resuscitation skills. We also report on how RETAIN was developed by an interdisciplinary team of six undergraduate students as a three-month term project for a second year university course.