MOST young girls have a fascination with make-up.

It was Olivia Charlton's love of cosmetics that led to her rather unusual career. "Moulage was something I never really knew," she says, referring to her work creating injuries on high tech mannequins to help with training within the medical profession.

"A lot of people are used to hearing it called special effects, but within simulation it is called 'moulage' - the French definition for applying mock injuries for the purposes of training," explains the 21-year-old.

The former Bradford College student began her 18 month apprenticeship in February 2014 and is now working as a Clinical Skills Assistant within Hull and East Yorkshire Hospital NHS Trust's award-winning Hull Institute of Learning and Simulation (HILS).

Olivia's unusual role is to create wounds front-line staff may be faced with, particularly within the hospital's A&E department.

Using a SimMan mannequin - a high tech patient simulator - which Olivia can control while re-creating training scenarios within the hospital setting, Olivia also has to re-create rashes and injuries pertaining to the situation or circumstances they are simulating.

Working alongside medical professionals, Olivia may be given a brief to create a rash similar to that which may appear after a bee sting or a specific allergic reaction such as an anaphylactic shock. She also uses the internet to research those that may not be as familiar.

“I do a lot of rashes to show anaphylactic shock and I can recreate anything people want, provided they can describe it to me,” she said.

One of the most complex injuries she re-created through trauma training was a gunshot wound which had to have an entry and exit.

"I think the most impressive I have done was the gunshot wound," says Olivia.

“I look on Google to see what gunshot or stab wounds look like so I can make it as realistic as possible for the teams. We have to show them what to expect.”

She explains how, for training purposes, the gunshot wound - for example - would be looked at in terms of treatment so it is important medical staff can see the impact and the potential organs it could have affected.

"It is putting it in as close as a realistic environment as it could be and showing how they deal with that," she explains.

Fake blood and grease paint, similar to face paint, are staples of the moulage make-up collection. Olivia explains how they often use liquid latex or modelling wax to create larger wounds.

Olivia has also created stab wounds, burns and blisters on faces - but perhaps the most high profile assignment she has worked on so far was Operation Orange Falcon, the mock-up major incident exercise during the summer.

The aim of the multi-agency exercise, simulating a major chemical spillage following a lorry crash, was to test cross-organisational response through emergency services working together.

Olivia worked alongside other moulage teams to recreate injuries on 'casualties.' She recalls how she also covered some of the volunteers in flour to suggest they had been covered in chemicals,

"It was really great to see how all the different services work together," says Olivia.

Through her role, Olivia also helps to deliver training. This can involve controlling a mannequin patient in a hospital ward scenario.

She explains how they often bring in actors to fill up the surrounding beds, creating situations medical staff may find themselves in.

Olivia explains a scenario could be a patient being disruptive on the ward while medical staff are trying to treat a patient.

Working in simulated environments such as this helps them to keep clam under pressure.

Launched in 2011, the £6.8 million Clinical Skills, Ophthalmology and outpatient development facility at Hull and East Yorkshire NHS Trust based on the Hull Royal Infirmary site provides education, training and assessment of clinical skills for healthcare students, foundation and speciality trainees and staff within the Trust and other healthcare providers.

The Clinical Skills facility provides a simulated ward, critical care and theatre suite. State-of the-art simulation equipment allows complex and invasive procedures to be simulated in a safe environment away from the clinical arena, allowing trainees to acquire high levels of clinical proficiency before undertaking them on patients. This includes simulation equipment for laparoscopic surgery, angiography, anaesthetics, dentistry and resuscitation.

Dave Wright, deputy director of Simulation and Consultant Anaesthetist at Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, says: "The whole Institute of Learning and Simulation is an educational tool for recreating real life clinical situations in an environment away from the hospital."

He says the simulation scenarios work well in demonstrating technical skills, such as an operation, as well as non technical skills. "There is a very good body of evidence that demonstrates it is an effective way to learn and retain your learning," explains Dave.

Students have access to a range of technical equipment such as the high tech SimMan, but others can be created from simple things. Dave explains how one of their ophthalmology consultants had re-created a specialised model of an eyeball from a jelly-like substance. This can be used to simulate fine small scale surgery in the back of the eye.

In relation to the trauma-related scenarios Olivia is involved in, Dave explains they are situations similar to those they may be faced with in A&E.

"That is where moulage is more useful but there are circumstances where it is used to create the feeling that you are really immersed in what is going on," says Dave.

The centre has become a well-utilised training resource. "For people who have not seen it before they find it fascinating," he adds.

For Olivia it provides a hugely satisfying role. "I enjoy doing it. I like seeing people walking in on a morning and walking out feeling as though they have learned something. I enjoy that feeling."