Setting up a skills lab in a medical college

How it is used

Students learn and repeat skills such as basic life support, injections, suturing, catheterisation and normal delivery on simulators. Teachers observe, give feedback and assess, often recording sessions for review. UG-MSR 2023 sets the minimum area and rooms for the skills lab, so check its schedule for your seat number.

Typical areas

• Open practice stations with task trainers
• Rooms for examinations and simulated patient encounters
• A debriefing or discussion room with AV equipment
• Storage for mannequins and consumables

What colleges commonly buy

• Mannequins: BLS/CPR adult and child, neonatal resuscitation, trauma, whole-body and obstetric mannequins.
• Task trainers: injection, suturing, urinary catheterisation, breast and gynaecological examination models.
• Furniture: training tables and chairs, examination couches, mannequin storage racks.
• AV and IT: computers for computer-assisted learning, display screens and recording equipment.

Choosing simulators

Simulators come in basic, intermediate and advanced (high-fidelity) levels. Basic task trainers cover most early skills; high-fidelity mannequins cost much more and are best chosen for specific scenarios your teachers plan to run.