# Neck Ultrasound Phantom Mannequin

How a neck ultrasound training phantom mimics skin, windpipe, vessels and thyroid, with swappable inserts for scanning and needle practice\.

By Sergio

Topic: Human Body & Medicine

[Open the interactive Jig](https://ask.jig.com/j/C4Bvjf6yJehe)

## Transcript

### 1. A neck made for practice

This soft mannequin is a training phantom: a model of the head and neck built so people can learn ultrasound scanning without a patient\. Drag anywhere to turn it and look around\.

Ultrasound uses sound far too high to hear, usually millions of vibrations per second\.

### 2. Clear skin, hidden parts

The skin is a soft gel that lets sound pass like real tissue\. Under it sit the parts a scan looks for: the windpipe in front, the neck bones behind, and blood vessels on each side\.

The windpipe is also called the trachea\.

### 3. Slot in the phantoms

The inside pieces are phantoms: replaceable inserts that copy real anatomy\. A pair of vessels goes in each side and a butterfly\-shaped thyroid gland sits in front of the windpipe\. Slot them into the neck\.

Red fluid fills the artery tube and blue fluid the vein tube, so needles draw back realistic colours\.

### 4. Gel and probe

The probe sends short pulses of sound into the neck and listens for echoes\. Gel removes air between probe and skin, because air blocks the sound\. The screen turns the echoes into a slice of the neck\.

Sound travels through soft tissue at about 1,540 metres per second, and the phantom gel is made to match\.

### 5. Two dark circles

Liquid sends back almost no echo, so blood vessels look black\. The round artery pulses with each heartbeat\. The larger vein beside it squashes flat under gentle pressure, which is how scanners tell them apart\.

The neck artery is about 6 to 7 millimetres wide; the vein beside it is often wider\.

### 6. The butterfly gland

Slide the probe across the front of the neck\. The thyroid shows as two grey wings joined in front of the windpipe\. A dark round cyst and a brighter lump called a nodule are hidden inside for practice\.

Air in the windpipe reflects nearly all the sound, leaving a bright curve with a shadow behind it\.

### 7. Colour shows flow

Blood is not really red or blue on a scan\. Colour flow mode measures how echoes shift as blood moves, then paints the motion\. Here the artery flashes with each beat while the vein flows steadily\.

This shift in pitch from moving blood is called the Doppler effect\.

### 8. Practice without risk

Trainees can scan the phantom again and again and practise guiding a needle into the vein\. The gel closes up after each needle, and worn inserts can be swapped for fresh ones\.

Phantoms like this help doctors place lines in the neck vein more safely on real patients\.