The UConn School of Medicine's Clinical Simulation Center (CSC) located at UConn Health provides students and clinicians the opportunity to practice challenging, immersive simulation training within a safe, hands-on learning environment. Within the 4500 square foot educational space, medical and dental students, as well as a variety of health professionals have the opportunity to practice on task trainers and high fidelity manikins to better enhance their skills. Learners have the opportunity to practice across the spectrum of medical care, from the basics of suturing through multidisciplinary critical care real-life scenarios.

Mission

The UConn School of Medicine simulation program will provide state of the art simulation education to medical students, faculty and residents to promote quality and safety, education and research. The simulation program will provide a cutting edge educational experience that is learner centric and individualized. The underlying mission is to achieve excellence in simulation education, training, learner assessment, and research.

Our Process

In order to provide the best learning opportunities we work with each group to determine goals and create cases matched to their learners' skill level. It is important to determine whether didactics, task training, high fidelity scenarios or a combination of these modalities best fit the needs of the group. We then ensure the appropriate content, pace and debriefing to best enhance the educational training experience for all participants. Teaming up with the Clinical Skills Assessment Program at UConn, scenarios can incorporate live patient instructors as well as interdisciplinary scenarios with UConn Health staff.

The Center

Simulation Rooms

3 multifunctional simulation rooms and an open bay that can be used to simulate a variety of hospital based and ambulatory settings:

• Emergency department
• Labor and delivery
• Operating room
• Adult and neonatal resuscitation
• Patient care rooms

Task Trainers

The CSC also encompasses a large task training space where students and clinicians can practice a wide variety of procedural task trainers

• Suturing
• IV, arterial line and blood draw
• Basic pelvic exam
• Breast exam
• Airway and intubation
• Laparoscopy
• Ultrasound guided central line
• Infant and adult lumbar puncture

Manikins

The CSC utilizes a variety of adult high fidelity manikins to instruct learners on diagnostic, management and team building skills in a controlled setting that can simulate a wide variety of cases. To accomplish this, many of our manikins have the ability to model human actions such as breathing, blinking with responsive pupils, sweating, bleeding, seizures and much more. This creates a more realistic experience for the learner. These manikins also have surgical procedure training capabilities including cricothyrotomy, needle decompression of a pneumothorax and placement of chest tubes and urinary catheters. Additionally, there are infant simulators and birthing simulators; the latter of which can train for a variety of normal and complex birthing scenarios, cesarean sections and post-partum hemorrhage.