The Intricacies of Medical Simulation: Moulage, Mannequins and Maintenance

Get ready for a thrilling conversation as we bring David Shablak, an industry expert with a passion for moulage in medical simulation, into the SimCafe. David's love for creating such lifelike injury scenes began during his tenure in the Civil Air Patrol, shaping his career in the medical simulation field ever since. Tune in as we peel back the layers on the SimGeeks podcast and explore how Billy's influence has carved out a unique niche in the industry.

As we move along, David delves into his journey within the sphere of emergency medicine residency, highlighting his engrossing work with moulage. Listen closely as he shares insights on crafting hyper-realistic moulage pieces that play a fundamental role in directing medical education objectives. Gain a newfound appreciation for mannequins as we discuss their varied types, the importance of knowing their material composition, and the recent advent of a more diverse range of mannequin skin tones. David also imparts practical advice on developing makeup looks that respect learners' goals while being cost and time-efficient.

As we wrap up, the importance of maintenance plans for mannequins and simulators takes the spotlight. Understand more about warranties, the dos and don'ts with mannequins, and the critical role of operations specialists during the purchasing process. David insists on the need for regular checks on mannequins and simulators, and we also delve into the intricacies of firmware updates and the need to keep up-to-date with software levels. Let David's expertise guide you through the fascinating intricacies of the medical simulation world.

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Transcript

Disclaimer/ SimGHOSTS/ Intro: 0:00

The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of anyone at Innovative Sim Solutions or our sponsors. This podcast is being sponsored by SimGhosts, the gathering of healthcare simulation technology specialists. If you take your healthcare simulation technology seriously, join SimGhosts. A membership provides you access to premium resources such as guides, templates and resources to save you time and effort while maintaining best practices. A membership includes a learning hub with online courses, including digital badges, and over 300 hours of video tutorials and presentations from our global events. Event and membership discounts for ASPE, IN SCL and SSH, a member-only forum with special interest groups.

Disclaimer/ SimGHOSTS/ Intro: 0:55

A career center that provides resources to help prepare you for the next step in your career, and a personal professional development portfolio to take your career to the next level. Connect with the community and love the work even more. Learn more by visiting our website and connect with us via Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn. Details in the show notes. Welcome to The Sim Cafe, a podcast produced by the team at Innovative Sim Solutions, edited by Shelly Houser . Join our host, Deb Tauber and co-host Jerrod Jeffries , as they sit down with subject matter experts from across the globe to reimagine clinical education and the use of simulation. So pour yourself a cup of relaxation. Sit back, tune in and learn something new from The Sim Cafe .

Deb Tauber: 2:00

Welcome to The Sim Cafe. How are you Jerrod Today? How are you doing?

Jerrod Jeffries: 2:05

Good thanks. We have the ability and the pleasure now to have David Shablak. Is that what, Dave? David? What's the name of this?

David Shablak: 2:16

For calling me. I don't care if it's Dave, David, but Shablak is the pronunciation. But again, I'm used to people not getting it right, so I just roll with it easy.

Jerrod Jeffries: 2:24

It's just a shh shh shh lala lala, exactly.

David Shablak: 2:29

And what's really funny about it, if you dig in the history very quickly, is that my great-great grandfather made it different so that it was easier to look up in the phone book, because he was a lawyer and back then the only way you got jobs was being in law, and when you were in law it was in the phone book, because Shablak just rolls off the tongue so well.

Jerrod Jeffries: 2:49

Yeah, it's always at the top of the alphabet too, but I feel like every time we chat you're in a new location. How often are you traveling?

David Shablak: 2:57

It really depends on the time of the year. During the summer it tends to be more, so I've been in Phoenix, I've been in Wisconsin and things like that and then towards the fall it tends to slow down. I've got a little bit more travel for a couple of weeks, but it should start slowing down. Yeah.

Jerrod Jeffries: 3:14

I hope so. We crossed paths, obviously, Deb and I doing the Simcafe, but we were at the Press Box IMS H this year in Orlando and you were doing SimGeeks, if that's correct, you want to tell us a little bit about that?

David Shablak: 3:28

So we were with the SimGeeks podcast. It was all four of us were there, but I think The Sim Cafe and SimGeeks podcast were the ones that were. Well, that and Simoperative. We were the locking down it for the entire time and it was a lot of fun. It was a really nice opportunity that society invited us in. We've been doing the SimGeeks podcast for four years now, something like that. We also have day jobs so we have to balance with everything. So we get some times where we have a lot of episodes. We have some times that we get a little quiet. We're currently in one of those times, but we're about ready to queue up a whole bunch of episodes and get some more stuff out very, very soon.

Deb Tauber: 4:04

Well, David, thank you so much again for joining us, and this is going to be the 100th episode of the The Sim Cafe and we thought it would be fitting to invite you. I think your name comes up and podcasts with other guests pretty often, and this is your second time with and your first time with Jerrod and myself. So thank you again, and this episode is going to be a little bit different because we're going to talk about Moulage.

Jerrod Jeffries: 4:32

I think it's a phone topic that I hold dear to my heart. If a phone book had it categorized, that's the title and then Shabla comes right underneath it. So it's much synonymous with that. I believe it tends to be ES.

Deb Tauber: 4:45

Yeah, I would agree. The first thing I want to ask, though, is in response to Billie's episode. We talked about her hashtag more than just a sim tech. What do you have to say about that?

David Shablak: 4:58

So yeah, in response to what Billie said is I remember this conversation and it was lovely because I met.

David Shablak: 5:05

Billy was one of the very first people in our industry that I met outside of my own sim center and I describe her as the simulation cheerleader, because she is that bubbly, inclusive, just absolutely just want to brighten your day up person and so because I respect her deeply and like her, I tend to be a stink, and so by that I mean yeah, I always do that back to her as I'm just a sim tech, just a rile with her, but I love the fact that she does that.

David Shablak: 5:36

I mean she really tries to show people that the need to the scope of practice of the sim tech is so much wider in all you know that of what we do and what we can offer the same industry and it's a wonderful thing that she's been doing for a long time. But I always feed her back that oh, I'm just a sim tech, just because it's a fun thing that we do and I love to rile her up a little bit. But in all seriousness, I deeply, deeply respect her and love all that she has brought this industry and she's an amazing person.

Deb Tauber: 6:08

Yes, I would agree. So let's get started on the moulage. How did you get started in moulage? What drew you to it?

David Shablak: 6:16

So when I was about 1213 years old, I was a part of an organization called Civil Air Patrol, or CIP.

David Shablak: 6:25

And not everybody understands CIP or Civil Air Patrol, what it is and what their mission is, but it basically is sort of like the Boy Scouts if you've never heard of Civil Air Patrol but it's more attached to the Air Force and at the time we were 75% of the finding force of lost aircraft. So lost personal aircraft. So if you're flying in a personal aircraft and you went down, the Civil Air Patrol was probably the ones that are going to come out and find you. So we had to be able to do search and rescue, disaster relief and all that so well. Part of that is setting up crash scenes.

David Shablak: 6:59

So many years I was in CIP and we just focused on the direction finding the finding lost aircraft. Well, then we started really focusing on wilderness, first aid extraction and things like that. So I was part of going into the Halloween store the day after Halloween and just totally stripping out everything they had, buying all of the latex wuchis and things like that, and I would help set up these crash scenes for search and rescue training and I just loved it. It wasn't a paid thing, it was something we just did because we loved and it helped the search and rescue teams.

David Shablak: 7:36

Then fast forward for about 20 years of very sketchy, weird everything I used to do, from armored vehicle restoration to retail management to wrapping for Apple and a friend of mine tapped me on the shoulder from back in the Civil Air Patrol days and said you know, that's stuff we used to do as a kid. Yeah, I get paid for that now. And that's how I ended up getting into medical simulation. For a long time I didn't do a moulage in it because I had to learn all of the tools of the trade of medical simulation, but then I evolved back into it and now I'm quite active with it.

Jerrod Jeffries: 8:12

I love when a comfortable circle. But one other question is did you ever have to go out and find anybody during your civil air patrol days?

David Shablak: 8:19

Oh yeah, we did search and rescue. We didn't have a whole lot of finds with arcing, but there were a lot of teams and civil air patrol had a lot of different missions that they would run. But search and rescue and disaster relief, they would do crash site security for the FAA, because it's a federal crime scene when you have an accident, and so we would do all kinds of things like that. But no, I never personally found any lost aircraft. But we had teams across the United States through. It's been in existence since 43, I believe, 1943. So it's got a long history.

Jerrod Jeffries: 8:51

Wow. And then this is decades ago, when you kind of got your hands well, I guess dirty with some moulage pieces. And then now, when was your first full time gig within, you know, healthcare simulation, doing the last?

David Shablak: 9:06

They worked for an emergency medicine residency in Dayton Ohio and that's where I kept my teeth and learned everything in medical simulation at. It was a very underfunded organization and so we had to make a lot of things up. But we also had a very good relationship with the disaster management group. That was ran out of date and fire that would do all city events and that's how we got to do some of the more larger events for moulage. So we would actually have big events that would have law enforcement incursion, it would have EMS extraction, stabilization extraction, and then we would go all to the parts of the hospital. So when we made up events like this, it would be 50 different patients and they would have to be you know, they would have to laugh from law enforcement incursion all the way through different parts of the hospital.

Jerrod Jeffries: 9:59

Are you still innovating with your different techniques and your ways of actually creating new realistic mood? Or maybe can you explain moulage to our listeners?

David Shablak: 10:10

Well, to answer what you were asking was do I still fail every day with makeup and learn different techniques? Oh yeah, I still struggle. I still what I say a lot is success through ample amounts of failure. So am I trying to come up with new stuff out of things that I have totally messed up? Yes, so that was how to answer the first question. What was the second one?

David Shablak: 10:32

Again, what is moulage? Okay, so moulage there are fancy terms for it and all that, but the way that I explain it is it is the medical, it's the makeup, special effects makeup that leads the learning objectives for medical education. So basically, it's the blood and guts makeup. I say that I have more makeup than my wife does. She doesn't wear a lot of makeup, but even if she did, I'd have more and I've got more gallons of blood and things like that. I call my moulage kit the cautionary tale of what not to do, because I've spent a whole lot of money on it that I'll never get back. So, basically, we are trying to very, very quickly do the makeup that will guide the learning objectives, to make sure that the learners get those experiences and those events, that therefore, they will be better to apply their medical knowledge when that event happens or if that happens.

Jerrod Jeffries: 11:27

Well, this could be also really big in drag shows or Carnival or other areas as well.

David Shablak: 11:34

Well, and everybody gets to medical simulation, let alone moulage, from different angles, and one of the draws we get is we get theater people. So we get a lot of theater people or we get a lot of people that are just Halloween lovers. I am a Halloween lover. I don't tend to have the time around Halloween to do stuff. Everybody's like oh, you must be so fun around Halloween. I'm like no, I'm working unfortunately. But yeah, it's fun because we can take these skills or we can take someone that was really good at any of those areas and bring them in and have them help, because when you have a citywide event like that, you need a lot of help and the people might have a little bit of experience in those fields and you need to translate that to. I need you to make a bleeding wound quickly, because I've got five more patients after that.

Jerrod Jeffries: 12:20

So then, jokes aside, then, is what's an important consideration when it comes to moulage specifically with mannequins, or even different types of mannequins, say between brands or ethnicity or plastics? Can you go into some of that?

David Shablak: 12:34

A lot of questions in there. So, as far as just with mannequins itself, the biggest thing is you want to know what your mannequin is made out of so that you can know what will stick to it and what won't damage it, because a lot of your makeup will stain a PVC based mannequin. So lots of manufacturers of mannequins make their skins out of PVC. Then you've got a lot of mannequins that are made out of silicone, and we love silicone, but sometimes it's the what will stick to silicone sort of situation and things like that. So with mannequins, it's how to do that.

David Shablak: 13:07

And then one of the other things you mentioned was the ethnicity. Yeah, we're getting a lot more skin tones in our mannequins, which is awesome. I love it. And what I always say, whether it's a mannequin moulage course or whether it's a people course, you need to have a plan ready to be respectful, because I always tell people if they stick a Caucasian wound on a person of colors or a mannequin of color, we're going to have a conversation, because it's all about having that plan, being ready to be respectful and be a good human.

Deb Tauber: 13:38

Thanks, David, and I think just for some of our listeners. So we talk moulinage, we talk realism, and I think the word fidelity, those three words all kind of create a triangle. And if someone's essentially studying for the cheese or the cheese A, the word moulage, realism and fidelity all fall into the same category. Would you agree with me on that?

David Shablak: 14:03

I would agree. The only caveat I will say off of that is you can fall down a very deep dark hole with moulage as far as realism, so if we talk about the difference between movie makeup and whenever I'm teaching a course I make everyone out loud say, I make the whole class say we are not movie makeup artists because the difference is a movie makeup artist is going to have somebody in the chair three to eight hours, maybe even more for complicated makeups. We've got five minutes maybe, and five minutes and moulage terms is forever. So somebody that is into the makeup it is into the moulage wants to make this hyper realistic and make it look so good, and that's why I try to dial people back up. If you've got the time to do that and you can get it planned in, go for it.

David Shablak: 14:52

Having that realism is important. You've got people like Paul Savage out in England doing some absolute knock your socks off sort of level of moulage for disaster events, but a lot of the times we don't have the time to do all that. So I want to meet a learning objective quickly. That's just enough. That's going to guide a learner, not overshoot the mark, not undershoot the mark to be able to get those learning objectives. So I'm usually doing learning objective based makeup.

Deb Tauber: 15:18

Absolutely.

Jerrod Jeffries: 15:19

I'd love that phrase Objective based makeup Because I mean that's the thing is right. You make up or moulinage enough for to complete the learning objective, and it's right, it's time. I don't want to say time is wasted if you go overboard. Of course, more realism and fidelity is there's nothing wrong with it, but you could divert those resources and intention elsewhere as well.

David Shablak: 15:38

Oh, you can completely waste time and I've got a very, very good friend of mine that we were all at an event and usually if you're one of the more experienced moulage artists, you're also managing the time of everybody else. You're trying to make sure there's time, there's turnover for the next person and all that. And we had an event where I noticed nobody was coming in and out of this person's area and so I stopped. I was doing it finished up. I go look and I'm like, hey, buddy, what's you doing? And he's sweating. And I'm like, what are you doing? He's done doing 16 gunshots. And I'm like, why? Well, that's what the card says. Card says 16 gunshots.

David Shablak: 16:13

And so you have to get in your educator brain and go okay, learning objective wise, and the three killers of makeup is time, effort and money. So if we talk about the time, effort and money pyramid of a person with 16 gunshots, if you're in a mass casually exercise and I walk upon you as a medical provider and you have 16 gunshots, how many seconds do you think I'm going to look at you? One, two, yep, move on. So if I have one gunshot that's placed properly, not properly, that's incorrect speak. I don't mean that, but something that is placed that is going to end someone's life. How many seconds am I going to look at you with one gunshot? The same amount of time. So that person was just wasting all of his time, all of his effort and all of his money. He's got nothing left in his kit and all that. So you have to really look at what you're doing and make sure that you're meeting the learning objective of creating someone who is deceased and moving on, but not spend too much time, effort and money on that.

Deb Tauber: 17:19

Yeah, I like that. Time, effort and money that is a key consideration when you're dealing with moulage and your resources. You need to be resource aware.

David Shablak: 17:31

It's huge. So that's why, with some materials, people love certain materials people dislike some materials. One of the materials I dislike is nose and scar wax, and I know that's a sin. Everybody loves nose and scar wax, but it's cheap. So the money's there, but it takes more time and more effort. And if I'm making a laceration out of nose and scar wax, what's the first thing that somebody is going to do as a medical provider? They're going to apply direct pressure and squish it. Well, now I've just earned myself a need for more money, more time and more effort, so I'd rather have a durable injury that I can use over and, over and over again.

Deb Tauber: 18:08

So what material do you like? Why don't you talk about that for some of our listeners who are not as familiar with moulage like myself as you are?

David Shablak: 18:18

As far as one of my favorites that I like to introduce to people, everybody is usually wear cream-based makeup, and cream makeup has some good points and it has some bad points, but it's available, everybody knows it, everybody has their experiences with it. The one that I love teaching people is alcohol-activated makeups, because it's used in every movie that you ever watch for ever and ever and ever, and some of the pitfalls are the problems you have with cream-based makeup. You don't have with alcohol-based makeup. So if you ever use the Ben Nye wheel anybody either one of you you ever use cream-based makeup to put pigment on things. Well, when you do, you put it on there and you put a lot of effort and you do all of that stuff.

David Shablak: 18:57

Well, there are ways of locking those pigments in that have varying level of experience whether they work or not, but most times we don't have time for that. So a lot of people will just put the cream-based makeup on there. Well then people will touch it, it will smear and it will transfer to clothing. It will stain mannequin skin, it will stain people's skin and things like that Alcohol-based makeup. You have to have 99% alcohol to transfer it, but once it's on the skin it doesn't go anywhere, it stays, and so that's one of my favorite pigment-based systems that I use.

Jerrod Jeffries: 19:32

Is there a I say like, not a hierarchy, but like is there an experience level of like okay, this is what most people start with, versus after two years in they become comfortable, this is what they start using. Once you've done it for a decade, this is what you start using. Can you ballpark that kind of trajectory? If there is one, I don't think it's necessarily time.

David Shablak: 19:51

I think it's more of a. verybody usually goes into the Halloween stores and starts with either rubber mask grease or grease paint or the cream paint makeups and the cream based makeup and RMG is different, but that's conversation for another time. But usually everybody has experience with that and that's usually you know, if you grab a moulage kit, usually there's going to be a Ben Nye wheel or some other brand and that's what is what people are experienced to. And if you're just one person inside a center that has not used a lot of moulage makeup, that's what a lot of people are experienced to. And really it comes down to how much you network, how many events you go to and how much you look outside of your center, which I'm a huge networker. I'm a huge person to have more people talk to other people in the industry, whether it be podcasts, like the same cafe, or going to events or the message boards, and that's usually where you learn about other things such as alcohol based makeup.

David Shablak: 20:49

Another thing I love when we're talking about mannequins is printing printable tattoos. So even for a simple bruise, if I can print a bruised tattoo, transfer it to a mannequin. Not only is it easy. Not only does it fit better into my time, effort and money triangle, but it's also repeatable. So if I'm going to do a scenario that I might do research around, I can make sure that that moulage is completely 100% every time the same for each learner group. So if you're doing research, it's much more repeatable.

Jerrod Jeffries: 21:25

Just for printable tattoos? I think I've been targeted on some internet sites. Is it like the gun, like a scanner, that you slowly go over no, Okay. So what are you talking about?

David Shablak: 21:35

I've seen that I know what you're talking about. I haven't played with that yet. It's on my list of things that I'm probably going to buy one day, but I need to slow that down so I don't just end up in a van down by the river. But no, this is basically. You know the water slide transfers that we all had as kids.

David Shablak: 21:52

You go to an event and the company has a little tattoo of a pirate symbol or whatever, or their logo, and you put it on your skin. You've got a wet rag, you soak the back of the paper and transfer it to your skin. So there are companies that make wound tattoos that are like that. So you've got tinsley transfers, you've got twilight creations and a couple others that make these really nice wound transfer tattoos. Well, you could actually buy paper and inkjet or laser, print your own so that you hold the images. You get the images. However, you get them. Legal means of finding injury tattoos or injuries. You print them on the paper. I usually transfer them over to a Tegaderm so that I'm making that tattoo of that wound and peeling sticks. So I can do that six months ahead of the event, make a hundred of them and therefore, as we're doing these events through the year. I just pull them out of the binder and grab them Wow.

Jerrod Jeffries: 22:51

I think that's the experience piece. I don't think anybody whose first year is on the job they're doing that.

David Shablak: 22:57

It's the networking piece, actually. That's what I mean. That's why, when you said the first year, second year, third year, it's more of the. As you talk to more people they're going to say, hey, have you tried this? And it's just something that I've been using in my center. When I got to my center, we've always been using them. It's not my idea, I didn't come up with that idea at all, but it was just something that was like mainstay at our center. That's just how we do it, so we can do repeatability. And is it the most hyper realistic? Is it the look photorealistic? No, but it meets the learning objective very quickly and allows us to turn over to the next one.

Jerrod Jeffries: 23:31

And to your point of that networking piece, we of course saw each other at an Omaha at the SimGhost 23 USA conference, which was great. But that's all probably a great way, because I know you gave a room filled presentation and I saw a line trying to ask you questions. I was actually training, even joking if I could get your autograph because so many people are hounding. But no, I mean to your point, right, networking, that's where you learn about different tricks of the trade.

David Shablak: 23:56

A lot of people will feel like they're the lone wolf out there and you're not. I mean, you're really doing yourself a disservice If you don't start networking in some way, because my favorite part about this industry is how much we're all sitting behind you waiting for you to call on us and waiting to help you.

Jerrod Jeffries: 24:12

I love it and I'm going to help you. I want to slightly pivot the conversation to another big topic, and that is probably some people's scary word and other people's, you know, they're a little more proactive, but that's about maintenance. So yeah, going into maintenance from your perspective, what are your key points within a maintenance plan or the?

David Shablak: 24:34

you know the overall frame of what a maintenance plan should involve A lot of your maintenance plan happens before you pick up a screwdriver. And that's really it is. When you say maintenance plan, it's the planning side of maintenance. First, because you have to know what your organization is ready to do, what you're allowed to do, because let's just talk about warranties for a second, are you in an organization that has warranties or not? What mannequins are in warranty, what mannequins are out of warranty? So you need to plan hey, this one is serviced by the manufacturer. We don't do it, we're going to, we're going to let the manufacturer do all of that repair and all of that warranty. So don't touch it.

David Shablak: 25:14

But Tom over here, tom we've had for 15 years. He's so far to warranty that we're keeping him on life support, literally with a ventilator, and we just we can pretty much do everything we want to him. So you've got those mannequins that we don't touch and we have our wonderful mannequin manufacturers that will support them for us through the main warranty programs or the off-label warranty programs, like Melissa. And then we have our other mannequins that we kind of are wild westing and we can do all kinds of things too. And I'm definitely in that sort of mindset because that original organization I came from, we had a lot of those 15 year old mannequins and we would make mannequins that would vomit. We would make mannequins that we could do peri-marble and C-section and things like that. So planning what you can do on which mannequins would be the start and deciding if you're going to keep your warranties or not.

Jerrod Jeffries: 26:05

Do you think that that should happen when you're purchasing the mannequin, or do you think that should happen six months?

David Shablak: 26:09

later.

Jerrod Jeffries: 26:10

Is that decision pick place?

David Shablak: 26:13

Very good point of. Yes, it needs to be planned when you purchase the mannequin of either we are going to have the warranty period between this time, this time, or if your organization decides not to get a warranty for whatever reason. And knowing what you're allowed to do and what you're not allowed to do, because you'll get a very eager syntax that's like, oh, I'll fix it and I'll go in there and I'll start doing some things to it. They're trying to be very helpful. Well, that mannequin is only six months old and by trying to help they may void the warranty.

David Shablak: 26:44

So, making sure that one everybody knows what you can do with which mannequins and then what the plan is, and part of that the plan is in the purchasing process. You should make sure your operation specialists are involved in that because they can say what their capabilities are. So if you get mannequin A, I feel very comfortable with mannequin A Boy. Mannequin C over there that you're considering has a whole lot of new technology and why is the operation specialist don't want to go anywhere near that? So I'm going to tell you yeah, you're thinking about not buying the warranty, but because of this feature, this feature, this feature, I really would recommend it. So having your operations people as a seat at the table is important in the purchasing process as a component of making your maintenance plan.

Deb Tauber: 27:32

No, david. What do you think about being proactive and checking your mannequins and simulators on a monthly basis? How frequently would you suggest that people do a check their mannequins to make sure things haven't changed from month to month or week to week, or what's your thoughts on that, and do you have any tools for that that you'd be willing to share with our guests?

David Shablak: 27:55

I don't have tools I should. I know in my organization we have a set schedule of when you should check certain things and it's very important because you can get very complacent and you can get very comfortable. We just had a preventive maintenance on one of my mannequins in my own shop and they found a broken part that when he found it I was like I should have seen that. So even I can get complacent in it. So, yeah, you need to check out these mannequins out, especially at problem areas. If you're going to do CPR on your mannequins every single semester, you know that's going to create problems In the chest area, so you know that you're going to need to check them out.

David Shablak: 28:33

If you have a mannequin warehouse and you haven't touched in a while Even that mannequin, you should make sure you're pulling that one out, powering it up, making sure it still works and making sure the software is update, because when they decide you need it, you don't want to find out that you have a problem. So if you want to have a good, successful program, yeah, you need to be checking your man in both the areas that you're using it with heavy use and even the one that you don't. You should be functions checking every quarter at least all of your basic functions and things like that, and getting inside of it if if it's a mannequin that allows it, and checking connections and hoses and things like that.

Jerrod Jeffries: 29:11

And then it's well said I'm. It reminds me of, you know, whenever you have a really important meeting, and that's when zoom or Microsoft teams your operating system has to update like OK, I got this presentation, but Of course, software update. The really big ones are firmware update or something like oh my gosh, this can happen any worse.

David Shablak: 29:37

And knowing the complications that that could bring. I mean, I love my man can manufacturers and they come in and sometimes they'll do preventive maintenance and it's like a great thing and it's wonderful. In some days I can be right there with them, some days I can't, some days I can't be in the same state as them, well Knowing that they're going to update the software every time. Ok, so now the mannequin and that one control surface has gotten updated past the level that you know in your head and everything is that. What if one of your faculty wants to take that control surface to another mannequin? Now you have a software mismatch. They don't understand that, they just know the darn thing doesn't work.

David Shablak: 30:18

So, knowing all of the little butterfly wings in the water and the ripples in the water that can happen of you think, oh, I've got a man can pee on coming up and this is great, you have to think, oh, wait, either I want to communicate with them and say don't update my software, or now I got to know that within the next week I need to update the software in my entire center. You've got one mannequin. That's no big deal but it. Most sites have 10, 20 mannequins and that's a lot bigger of a job that you need to devote that much time to.

Deb Tauber: 30:48

Yes, yes, and David, you also have I think it's a YouTube station called I do. Yeah, why don't you tell us a little bit about about that YouTube station and about the name of it?

David Shablak: 31:01

So I'm a big fan of a very I mean, I think we can probably say this old house. I like working on all sorts of things, from houses to cars to everything. So I grew up watching this old house and there was a syntax from or some operation specialist from Canada that was like hey, did you realize that these mannequins are on sale right now on this you know random place? And so the plan was hatched to buy five mannequins. That was maybe not the best plan in the world, but and because of that, or buy those to start fixing them up on a YouTube channel and I named it this old mannequin.

David Shablak: 31:42

So if you go to simulation tech, simulation to UK on YouTube and look at the channel, there's one that is this old mannequin and it started out with me working on one of the mannequins. And I need to get back to that mannequin because it still sits in the corner of my shop looking at me every day. But I also do tips, tricks, lessons, how to do certain things. I'll see things come up in the board Will this work or why won't this work and do this. And if I happen to be at home, I can try to flip all the cameras and lights on and make an episode of it. So it's just something that's out there to try to provide tips, tricks, resources and how tos about some operations topics.

Jerrod Jeffries: 32:27

That certainly goes fitting with update, one mannequin, that is, software update, yet to your center, because obviously mismatches and what you have. But it also leads me into the next question as well, as we've been talking about warranties, but and you touch upon it with, there's certain amount of comfortability or confidence around certain types of vendors or brands, but also new technology that's entering. So what do you want to say about warranty take it always, get in the warranty or sometimes, versus fix it yourself? Can you expand on more of what's the decision between the two and do you have a rule of thumb or is there any other sorts of pieces of advice you want to share with our listeners?

David Shablak: 33:06

It's a hotly debated topic and there are people on both sides of whether you need a warranty or not, and it really comes down to the capabilities you have in your center of do you have people that can order parts, can they install the parts and do they have the technical know how? But then it comes down to while they have the technical know how, do they have the time to do it? So you might have some very technically agile people in your center, but if you're running at such a big pace in a such a big tempo, do you have time to pull that mannequin and that person out of service when you might be easier just to have a warranty on it and therefore I can either send it off to the manufacturer and they take care of it or they'll send a technician out. So again, when we talk about maintenance plan, all of this is part of your maintenance plan, of knowing the capabilities and the time that you have.

David Shablak: 34:02

I would say for the vast majority of centers, buying either primary, secondary warranty company would be crucial because they just don't have the time or the know-how or, as we discussed earlier, they buy the warranties for a period of three to six years. They know they want to keep the mannequin well beyond the expected lifespan of that mannequin and that's when they start fixing it themselves. But I've also talked to a lot of sites that do not buy warranties at all and ever, and the only thing I would say is, however much you are going to spend on that warranty, you need to put that in the bank because your mannequin is going to break. It's just like your car. It's going to get to a certain age or it's going to be treated roughly. It happens to all of us. We walk out of a sim suite, we walk back in 10 minutes later and the head's broken off. Who

Disclaimer/ SimGHOSTS/ Intro: 34:52

did this.

David Shablak: 34:52

Oh, nobody knows, Nobody knows, we don't know. That's been like that for years, really. So if you don't have a plan of how to fix it, but also the financial means, because some sites will say, well, we're not going to buy a warranty, so we're just going to save that money Well then what's going to happen is Murphy can hear you and Murphy's going to be like oh well, we're going to have a talk with your motherboard. That's $10,000. Did you have that money set aside? No, we were saving that money. Well, now you're going to pay more money than the warranty because the motherboard died. We need to really make it part of that maintenance plan that we discussed about earlier as far as what you're going to do when things break, because they are going to break.

Deb Tauber: 35:34

Yeah Well, I have really enjoyed learning about moulage and maintenance from you, David, and if our listeners wanted to get ahold of you, where could they reach out to you?

David Shablak: 35:48

I'm on most social media platforms, either with the Sim Geeks podcast all of them that I'm aware of even threads a little bit but mainly on LinkedIn, facebook, Twitter, instagram. Also I've got Simulation Tech, which is my small company, and I make some different things on there, but also that's where I house the Dysold Mannequin video series. But so, either on Simulation T-E-K, simulation Tech or on the Si Geeks podcast.

Deb Tauber: 36:17

Thank you anything that you want to ask us, Jerrod or no.

David Shablak: 36:20

So, first off, congratulations on your 100 episodes. That's a huge hurdle. I mean, anybody here talking about podcasts and things like that? They're like yeah, yeah, yeah, you're not legit until you're 100. I'm not. Our artist is not anywhere near 100, and things like that. So this is a gigantic hurdle. So much work and so much has gone into it. I just wanted to say congratulations. I'm honored that you would have me on your 100th episode and can't wait to see what you guys do with the next 100. Thank you.

Deb Tauber: 36:51

David. Yeah, thank you, and with that, good morning, good afternoon or good evening, wherever you're at. Thank you very much and happy simulating.

Disclaimer/ SimGHOSTS/ Intro: 37:03

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