Background: Emergency thoracotomy is a rare but lifesaving procedure in victims of chest trauma especially with penetrating wounds. In the United States, 9 percent of all trauma-related deaths occur from injuries to the thorax, of which one-third involve a penetrating mechanism. In an internal survey, 80% of cardiothoracic surgeons felt that special training is required and only 7% reported that they regularly practice emergency thoracotomy in arrest. We plan to develop an emergency thoracotomy simulator to be used by our surgical residents to increase their procedural competency. The basis of our hypothesis is to develop a low-cost training model as the same has limited commercial availability. We also plan to combine different simulation
