Simulation Laboratories & Equipment

Critical Care (ICU/ED/Trauma) Simulation Lab - Room CA 238

This room replicates a high acuity setting such as an Intensive Care Unit, Emergency Department or Trauma Room. Interprofessional teams will work together in this space to simulate care for the most critically ill patients in our hospitals.

Example teaching sessions in this space include:

  • major trauma from motor vehicle accident
  • cardiac arrest
  • unconscious patient found in an unmonitored space

Operating Room (OR) Simulation Lab - Room CA 241

Designed and equipped to match a current operating room (OR), this space provides the surgical team with a venue to practice both routine procedures as well as the management of rare, intraoperative, unexpected events.

Users groups will include:

  • Anesthesiologists
  • Surgeons
  • Nurses
  • Anesthetic Assistants
  • Allied Health Clinicians

Equipment in this room includes an anesthesia machine, bedside ultrasound and ventilator.

Simulated scenarios will include:

  • Hypoxemia (low oxygen during surgery)
  • massive blood loss
  • cardiac events requiring surgery, such as an irregular heartbeat or heart attack
  • malignant hyperpyrexia (a rare life-threatening clinical syndrome)
  • unexpected drug reaction

Patient Care (Ward/Flex) Simulation Lab - Room CA 236

This four bed simulation area will be used by nurses, students and other professionals, to focus on in-patient hospital care.

Scenarios enacted in this space include:

  • Triage, enabling learners to make decisions on which patient needs care first.
  • Identification of suspected septic shock while providing post operative wound care.
  • Practicing skills on a task trainer, such as tracheotomy practice

Control Rooms

The centre has two control rooms that technicians use to remotely program a mannequin to simulate a wide range of unanticipated medical situations that help learners acquire relevant skills under pressure.

View CICSL floor plan


Other Resources and Equipment

Debriefing Room: This room provides space for training teams to meet both before and after simulation events.

The prebriefing is dedicated to orientation and establishing ground rules, whereas the debriefing is a facilitated conversation to explore the lessons leaned during simulation and discuss ways to bring these forward to clinical practice.

Mannequins: Powered by wireless technology, simulated human patients are ultra-modern learning tools designed to breathe, talk, bleed, cough, and moan when in pain.

The centre uses mannequins ranging in age and body type from newborn to adult. Each has a name, a medical and social history, and lifelike features including blinking eyes, a beating heart, working lungs, and a voice that responds to treatments. 

Each mannequin can be programmed to behave in different ways, with vital signs that respond to treatments and interventions, and an intercom system that allows for the patient voice to be heard by the care delivery team. They have a pulse and transmit these electrical rhythms to bedside monitors. The Simulation Technologist, in the control booth, can simulate various medical conditions which range from common clinical situations to high acuity events requiring urgent interventions.

Task trainers provide learners with the key elements necessary to practice performing a task. This allows for basic skills development and on-demand practice of clinical, often ultrasound guided, procedures including:

  • Central Vascular Access (femoral / neck / pediatric)
  • Lumbar Puncture (adult / pediatric)
  • Thoracentesis
  • Paracentesis
  • Knee arthrocentesis
  • Crycothyrotemy
  • Airway trainers