The Clinical Simulation Lab - a collaboration between UVM Medical Center and the Larner College of Medicine at UVM and the UVM College of Nursing and Health Sciences - is an interdisciplinary, state-of-the-art "virtual hospital" that allows medical and nursing students, physical therapy students, medical residents, physicians and nurses, community EMTs and Vermont National Guard members to practice clinical procedures in a safe learning environment.
In the Clinical Simulation Lab, trainees can "practice" on mannequins whose complex circuitry causes them to react as if they were human.
Standardized patients - the very human community members who have been specially trained to accurately portray specific roles or conditions - are used in conjunction with simulation technologies in this facility.
The 12,600 square-foot
- Six inpatient hospital rooms, each equipped with video cameras for recording and communication
- A multi-purpose room that can function as a simulated Operating Room, Emergency Room or Intensive Care Unit
- A professional skills/task training lab with body-part models for learning how to perform such procedures as drawing blood, lumbar puncture, and insertion of central and IV lines
- A virtual reality lab for practicing surgical skills
- A debrief room
Ted [dot] Jamesuvm [dot] edu (Ted James), a UVM Medical Center oncology surgeon and Larner College of Medicine at UVM associate professor, is director of Clinical Simulation. Funding for the project came from a gift of the late Thomas Sullivan, MD, who worked and taught at UVM Medical Center and UVM, and a $1.75 million grant secured by U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy.
Visit the Clinical Simulation Lab on the University of Vermont web site for more information.