High Tech Classroom

GW's educational facilities are at the forefront of academic medicine and give GW medical students, residents, nurses and physicians a decided edge over their counterparts in programs at other institutions.

The Clinical Learning and Simulation Skills (CLASS) Center, part of the Integrated Education and Research Center, provides one of the most innovative educational environments in the nation. Here, students supplement their classroom learning with comprehensive clinical exposure, feedback and evaluation that prepare them to become both technically adept and passionate caregivers.  What makes the CLASS Center even more unique is its versatility. While it was designed primarily to educate medical students, its innovative technology makes it an ideal setting to teach students from almost any discipline. And, special training opportunities are available to GW residents as well as medical professionals not affiliated with GW.

The old adage “Practice makes perfect” is a fitting theme for the CLASS Center’s Education Rooms. Building on the important advances in simulation methodologies, the education rooms can significantly improve the way teaching and evaluations for professionals in training are conducted. Equipped with video monitoring technology, the education rooms provide students with an opportunity to practice their skills under the watchful eyes of their instructors before actually applying them in the “real world.”

The 12 rooms in this suite were created as patient examination rooms, designed to teach and evaluate medical students in basic clinical skills, including history taking, physical examination, communication and relationship building. Students have live encounters with “standardized patients,” or actors playing the role of actual patients, before encountering real patients. Standardized patients are specifically trained to consistently and accurately portray the history, physical findings, personality and emotional responses of actual patients, and to interact with the students as actual patients would. After the “examination,” standardized patients play a role in the evaluation process, assessing students on a faculty-created checklist.

While the Surgical Simulation and Demonstration Area seemed space age when it was first introduced, today it is setting the standard for education in the healthcare professions. The Simulation Center (SimCenter) provides technologically advanced human patient simulators and human models to provide hands-on practice of essential skills, procedures and critical care training. A longitudinal curriculum for first-year medical students through senior residents guides trainees through progressively more complex skills and scenarios, preparing them for increasing patient care responsibilities.

Based on the concept of simulation that allows pilots to practice flying without ever leaving the ground, the Simulation Center uses virtual reality and two full-scale “mock” operating rooms to create highly realistic scenarios for procedural training. Each room can be configured to match the conditions of an operating room, emergency room or intensive care unit. In addition, a highly sophisticated computer-controlled mannequin is used to practice such techniques as airway management, emergency resuscitations, trauma care, obstetric management and teamwork skills.

For more information, please go to www.gwumc.edu/class