Our Clinical Simulation Learning Centre is one of the most significant changes in nursing education at Humber’s School of Health Sciences. The simulation learning centre is a resource that complements practice education in many of our programs, including nursing, paramedic, occupational and physiotherapy assistant, and personal support worker. The simulation lab can improve student learning by providing a variety of clinical situations that might not arise during the hours a student is in the practice setting. It offers opportunities to rehearse skills before trying them on real patients, thus improving patient safety.
Simulation improves faculty resource utilization, decreases pressure on our clinical partners for placements and creates new opportunities for partnerships among educators. Importantly, it serves all programs within the School of Health Sciences for discipline-specific learning and for interprofessional learning.
Simulation education is a proven method of supporting learning in a low-risk situation while being introduced to, and integrating, increasingly complex scenarios within the education process. This supports graduates to practice the complex task of integrating knowledge, skill and critical thinking and decision-making, learning to multi-task in the busy practice environment.
All of our students have the opportunity to experience a variety of care settings and health scenarios thereby enabling them to be better prepared upon graduation. While the lab may be used most often by typical health sciences students, we also support interprofessional collaboration for patient-centred care by involving other programs such as funeral services, and early childhood education in patient-centred scenarios for the very-young-child and the end-of-life situation.
The Clinical Simulation Learning Centre includes:

3 independent learning labs—each with 8 beds—and one lab with 10 beds
Each lab has the capacity to simulate a general inpatient unit
A 2-bed critical care unit for infants and adults
All labs are equipped with video and audio recording for evaluation and learning

During the simulations, students are able to assess various medical situations and respond with appropriate treatment measures, such as inserting IVs, medication delivery, various oxygen delivery procedures, tracheotomy care, etc. The high-fidelity patient simulators also include vocal responses and heart and lung sounds. The simulation lab is an essential learning environment where students are able to work, learn and practice in a risk-free setting.