Meet William - our new £45,000 cardiac echo simulator
Meet William – a new £45,000 state-of-the-art Cardiac Echo Ultrasound Simulator that will give Kettering General Hospital’s physiologists and doctors vital practice in detecting heart problems.
William has been gifted to KGH by a grateful Desborough couple whose £130,000 cardiac equipment legacy will help hundreds of patients each year.
Michael King, from Gladstone Street, had heart problems and in his later life had a pacemaker implanted at KGH which was checked for many years by the hospital’s Cardiac Investigations Department. He died in 2016.
When Michael’s wife Sylvia died in 2018, aged 73, their legacy was left to KGH’s cardiac services.
Principal Cardiac Physiologist, Sean Thuis, said: “We want to say a big and very public thank you in Michael and Sylvia’s memory for what they have done to support our cardiology services.
“We shall be purchasing equipment which will benefit hundreds of patients each year and help improve the skills of our medical teams and investigations teams so that we can more easily detect and treat heart problems.”
The first item purchased from the legacy has been a Cardiac Echo Ultrasound Simulator. This is a very special item used to train Cardiac Physiologists (from the Cardiac Investigations Department) and hospital doctors how to perform echocardiography.
The monitor comes with its own simulated patient – a mannequin which the department have named William - which can be programmed to have specific heart problems.
Cardiology Registrar Dr Gareth Squire, who has recently begun training in echo, said: “This is a very significant investment which will have great benefits to our staff and to patients.
“Echo ultrasound is a skill developed through constant practice. This simulator will enable doctors and physiologists to practice many different scenarios and heart abnormalities which – if limited to seeing real patients – takes many years to develop.
“Using the simulator we can fast-track that experience and our staff can learn to better diagnose common – and less common – conditions quickly and accurately.
“It can also be used in cardiac arrest training to detect fluid around the heart, lung clots and heart attacks – and will help doctors to train for these emergencies which can, and sometimes do, happen in A&E or on our wards.”
In real patients a probe generates high frequency sound waves which bounce off the structures inside the body. The returning sound waves are picked up by the probe and converted into images by the ultrasound machine. These pictures – called an echocardiogram – show how the heart valves and chambers are working and help staff to detect and diagnose problems.
The simulator isn’t actually an ultrasound machine, but instead makes use of complex sensors to detect the position of the probe on the mannequin to produce pictures of a digital heart on a computer. This gives a model of the heart which is highly realistic and detailed.
The legacy was gifted to Cardiac Investigations and its use is overseen by the hospital’s Charitable Funds Committee.
Charitable Funds Committee Member, and KGH’s Director of Finance, Nicci Briggs, said: “We are extremely grateful for Michael and Sylvia’s legacy which is already helping us to improve training for our doctors and physiologists to better support patient care.
“Other items will follow from the legacy to be used in ways that will support the many hundreds of cardiac patients we see each year.”
Seatons Solicitors worked with KGH as the Kings’ Executors to enable them to pass on their gratefully received legacy.