Expanded simulation centre opens at UCalgary medical school

Posted April 19, 2010

By Jordanna Heller

Students training in SimSchemes centreThe Undergraduate Medical Education program at UCalgary is expanding one of the foremost simulation programs used worldwide. The program is unique because medical students train on simulators right from the beginning of their schooling, before they start working in hospitals. The centre uses a variety of simulators, to teach skills such as responding to emergency room scenarios, listening for specific lung and heart sounds, performing procedures and suturing limbs.

The SimSchemes Centre offers a hands-on approach to training doctors says Dr. Bruce Wright, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Medical Education, “This new space is essential to providing our students a safe place to practice clinical skills. Students can make mistakes and learn from those mistakes while they are early in their training.”

The centre includes three Harvey simulators which allow students to deal with a mock clinical setting, complete with patient monitors showing blood pressure, chest x-rays and laboratory results. There are also two SimMan3G simulators that, with assistance of a technician, can talk and respond to injury or treatment like a real human might. These manikins allow students to practice everything from chronic disease management to complicated emergency situations, such as heart attack or stroke.

Dr. Kristin Fraser, Director of Simulation for UME and a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine trains medical students with the simulators. “We have shown that simulation has a positive impact on learning essential clinical skills in pre-clinical years and that those skills are retained.  We have also shown that the acquired skills are transferable to real patients with similar conditions to the manikin. We are giving students sessions early in their training to target key skills for the future,” she says.

The new centre is an expansion of the anatomy simulations laboratory which  allows the students to learn basic science in one room  and then potentially walk next door to a manikin simulator and apply that knowledge to clinical practice – something students say gives them an advantage in their training.

“I have found that simulation training is terrific for experiencing scenarios that we only read about as medical students,” says second year medical student Miles Smith.  “And discussing the situation afterwards with our supervisor means that we learn from both our successes and oversights.”