Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University has established the largest simulation center for medical education and training in the world. It is designed in the form of a hospital in which students practice realistic medical scenarios and medical cases in a guided environment that uses more than 224 interactive medical dummies and virtual reality equipment to provide a reality-like environment between a patient and a doctor. The trainees experience new, rare, complicated and urgent situations, which may happen in real life. The Center achieves one of the University’s strategic objectives by equipping students with the skills to succeed in life, offering an environment for innovative learning that focuses on the students, and providing high-quality curricula that prepare students for success and make them capable of entrepreneurship and earn professional ethics.
The Center is designed with 28,000 square meters area and includes a theater of 270 square meters. Therefore, it is considered the largest simulation center in the world in terms of space. It has as well clinical testing rooms, number of laboratories for various health sciences and different departments such as:
- Department of Critical Care
- Department of Surgery
- Neonatal Care Unit
- seven operating rooms
- more than 225 interactive medical dummies.
It is also equipped with normative patient program and Virtual Injury Makeup Unit (Moulage), in which special tools and colors are used to make fake wounds and various semi-like injuries.
Moreover, many cooperation agreements have been signed with the best educational and training associations in the world with different international and national accredited workshops directed to Saudi Arabian society. It has an academic calendar that contains various activities, and training sessions accredited by the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties. It aims to develop the quality of health services and also helps to improve the member’s training skills. Number of major workshops are offered in the Simulation Center and presented by life support center that provides accredited and certified workshops from the American Heart Association (AHA). The most important workshops are:
- Basic Life Support skills (BLS)
- Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS)
- Heartsaver First Aid (HSFA)
- Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)
- Automated External Defibrillator (AED).
The AHA also provides community health services through the provision of certified cardiopulmonary resuscitation courses for family and friends by using hands during the year. . In 2017, more than 3200 individuals benefited from 30 training courses implemented in schools and installations.
The center is considered an important scientific and practical supporter for graduates from medical specialties, which will habilitate and prepare them to practice their careers in the future properly. It will train medical undergraduate students as well to practice health services on various clinical skills and women health in particular.
It is worth mentioning that the center includes various activities for developing the clinical skills, based on the methodology of simulation training in health care to help in habilitating the students on accuracy and perfection. As a result, this will positively reflect on the patient health and safety.