The Carl J. Shapiro Simulation and Skills Center at BIDMC is located on ground floor of the Shapiro Building. The Center includes a large teleconference room for up to 65 learners and contains live media feeds to four different operating room endosuites, allowing for teleproctoring, inter-institutional courses, and intercontinental broadcasting of Grand Rounds.
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The high-fidelity mock operating and intensive care unit rooms feature working water and gas lines, video cameras, and observation windows with state-of-the-art teleconferencing ability. The procedure simulation area contains 27 partial task trainers, which can be used by several learners in small-group sessions. The surgical simulation area contains computer-based tutorials, filmed operations, and the Virtual Patient Program.
Skills Arcade
The main entrance of the simulation center is known as the Skills Arcade. While you won’t find any pinball machines here, you will find several surgical simulators. These simulators allow surgical trainees to practice laparoscopic techniques that will eventually be utilized in the operating room. The simulator exercises include the bean drop, rope drill, peg transfer, and culminate in suturing stations. These various exercises help users develop better hand-eye coordination and depth perception, as well as practice their knot tying and suturing skills. The stations are equipped with surgical tools as found in the actual operating room, complete with laparoscopic cameras.
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In addition, the Skills Arcade also houses several virtual reality trainers, allowing learners to perform virtual operations using a combination of tools and screen-based simulation. These trainers include the DaVinci Robot Consoles, airway simulators, virtual bronchoscope stations, endoscope stations, and more.
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Lastly, this area includes a computer lab with several hospital workstations, providing our learners a convenient location to work on virtual patient modules, watch videos from our surgical library, or just catch up on some work.
Multipurpose Room
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This space is utilized as a combination of a teaching and simulation space. The room can be converted into an additional learning space with its four movable tables, whiteboard, presentation screen, and third Laerdal manikin setup with audio capabilities. Additionally, this room houses most of our task trainers, making it a great space to use for courses. Capacity fits 15.
Simulated Intensive Care Unit
Our simulated intensive care unit is one of the busiest in our unit. This space functions as our ICU, emergency room, intake and recovery, and just a patient room. Our courses include cardiac arrest scenarios, code prevention, bedside teaching, among others. The room includes a high fidelity manikin as well as real clinical equipment. As with our operating room it is fully equipped with video cameras and microphones allowing the faculty to tape the session for debriefing and feedback.
Simulated Operating Room
Our simulated operating room is a full replica of the minimally invasive suites in use at BIDMC. The level of detail allows our surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, and scrub techs a fully immersive environment. They are trained on the same equipment they use in the operating room giving them as true to life experience as possible.
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Our learners will use the manikin patient to replicate real life scenarios while faculty members observe the session from the control room. Sessions are videotaped and used in a debriefing session.
Videoconference Room
With a capacity of 65, the videoconference room is our largest meeting space. It features a podium and projector, classroom-style setup, and is best for lecturing, debriefing, and task training for larger groups.
Debriefing Room
Used primarily as a debriefing area, teams can engage in facilitated discussions of training scenarios utilizing captured video of their performance. The sophisticated equipment in the room allows for comprehensive evaluations and presentations. Capacity fits 10.