The newest addition to the School of Medicine and Health Sciences will not only keep the University of North Dakota in the forefront of medical education but also serve as a valuable resource for the entire region.
The Clinical Education and Simulation Center, located on the west side of the Clinical Education Center, is already complete. By spring, the simulators will be in place, and the facility will be fully functional by fall 2010, said the center’s director, Jon Allen, MD ’84.
The building’s main floor includes about 5,200 square feet. A 1,900-square-foot basement will provide storage for equipment, oxygen, medical air, and other items required by the center.
The main floor houses four simulator rooms that will be so realistic, students will feel as if they’re walking into an emergency room, intensive care room, or a regular hospital room, depending on the scenario for which the room is set up.
“Everything is as it would be in the hospital,” Allen said.
And the realism doesn’t end there. The rooms will be equipped with human simulators that are so remarkably lifelike they can talk, cry, breathe, and bleed. Running on a computer system, the human simulators can mimic hundreds of human medical conditions, ranging from heart attacks and seizures to allergic reactions and drug overdoses.
Human simulators can cost anywhere from $30,000 to over $500,000. According to Allen, the ones ordered for the sim center average in the $55,000 range and will include at least four adult human patient simulators, a baby simulator, a mother and baby birthing simulator, and four cardiac patient simulators. Some also will be portable, meaning they can be used in an ambulance.
“We can reproduce almost any medical situation,” Allen said.
Instructors can watch their students working in the sim rooms through one-way glass, and audio equipment will allow them to communicate as necessary. In addition, video cameras will digitally record what happens in the sim rooms.
“We review the scenario on video and talk about what went right and what went wrong and how to improve in debriefing sessions that follow,” Allen said.
