Simulation Clinic
Sim Clinic ‘pods’
The Simulation Clinic helps first- and second-year students make a smoother transition from the preclinical to clinical setting. It allows seniors to refine their skills for clinical board/licensure exams and it provides a more realistic environment for practitioners taking continuing education courses.
Eighty operatories are clustered in modules that can accommodate right- and left-handed students. Each operatory has a mannequin with a realistic tooth model and jaws that function very much like a human’s.
Student working on mannequin dentiform
Each unit also has a video monitor, dental instruments, and connections for laptop computers, which will provide simulated patient records and other electronic resources.
Students work with a mannequin’s dentiform while following instructions for a dental procedure.
The mannequin is positioned like a reclining patient in a realistic clinical setting.
At the instructor’s station, faculty members supplement lectures by demonstrating dental techniques via slides, digital radiographs, and video and live images, which are broadcast to each student’s simulator station.
The multimedia instruction gives students both the opportunity to see magnified views of procedures and review taped demonstrations.
The faculty can also maintain contact with students as they work on a patient case scenario. At the instructors’ station, faculty use the multimedia system to demonstrate different techniques or broadcast slides, digital radiographs, or video and live images to each station.
Instructor’s station
Instructor monitoring sim clinic
Other Facilities in the Simulation Clinic Area
All students use the Bench Lab for pouring models, casting, and fabricating prosthodontic appliances. Instruments and other supplies may be checked out from a central dispensary. The Lab is also open during evening hours.
The Grading Room provides a separate, accessible space for grading and discussing student projects.
The Oral B Classroom offers electronic support for lectures, conferences, and computer-based learning, and includes network connections for 40 persons.
Additional facilities in the Simulation Clinic area include two radiology rooms where dental students may make and develop radiographs, a support laboratory for fabricating appliances, a central dispensary, grading room, and emeritus faculty offices.
Images by Scot Krenz and Eric Corbin