The new simulation centre (SIMU) under construction at Brno’s Masaryk University (MU) is almost complete. It is set to open its doors in Autumn, and will become one of the largest simulation centres in Europe. Visualisation of SIMU project in Campus Bohunice / via MUNI.cz.
Brno, Feb 19 (BD) – SIMU is meant to imitate a real hospital environment, and will be mainly used by the Faculties of Medicine and Dentistry. While hospital training remains mandatory, it has its limitations. The director of SIMU at the Faculty of Medicine, Petr Štourač, told MU News that “the average period of hospitalisation is getting shorter and patients are increasingly unwilling to participate in medical student training. This means that students are much less likely to encounter someone with a specific diagnosis or observe the whole process of providing care to that patient.” SIMU is meant to help students circumvent these limitations in a simulated environment.
Students enrolling in General Medicine and Dentistry in the academic year 2020-21 will be the first to have simulation training included in their curriculum. According to MU, they will be working with one of the largest virtual patient collections, which will include 125 for acute medicine and several dozen more complex algorithms for disciplines such as pharmacology, psychiatry and internal medicine. The most advanced types of patient simulators will react identically to a human body to healthcare interventions. They will display the body’s physiological functions, such as sweating or turning blue due to asphyxia, and they will even be able to talk to the students.
The SIMU building will have a usable floor area of almost 8,000 square meters, and will house extensive equipment including an emergency department, heliport, operating room, maternity ward, intensive care unit, examination rooms, dental offices and hospital rooms.
MU estimates that the total cost of the building, its equipment and teacher training will reach approximately CZK 1 billion (ca. EUR 40 million).
Prepared by Tessa Adamson
