Welcome to the Clinical Skills Center (CSC) at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Located in the Daniel W. Rahn Interprofessional Education Building, the Clinical Skills Center is the primary facility for teaching and assessing students’ clinical skills.
The CSC is a four-thousand-square-foot facility that houses fourteen outpatient exam rooms. Rooms are equipped with multiple cameras connected to an enterprise-level audiovisual management system. The exam rooms are able to accommodate one on one learner-patient encounters as well as teaching sessions. Seven exam rooms are equipped with phones for telemedicine cases.
A center hallway is dedicated to the entrance and exit of the learners into each exam room. The hallway is equipped with fourteen computers, keyboards, mice and monitors for pre and post-encounter data entry. There are two side observation hallways with views through one-way mirrors into all fourteen rooms. This hallway is utilized by standardized patients and faculty for entrance into the rooms. Each room is also equipped with audio jacks to provide an opportunity to listen and watch through the glass.
A central observation room is dedicated to standardized patient and faculty trainings. There are fourteen computers used to view the room encounters. A control room suitable for managing multiple events throughout the clinic is connected to the observation area. A separate office suite is provided for Clinical Skills Center faculty and staff.
Students at the Schools of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Genetics, Dietetics, Forensic Psychiatry, Education and other health-related professions all utilize the patient examination rooms to interview and examine Standardized Patients (SPs). SPs are members of the community hired and trained to portray case scenarios for the students to learn and practice communication with patients and performing physical examinations. Every encounter is recorded and captured by CAE LearningSpace. Our institution is a member school of the Association of Standardized Patient Educators (ASPE).
The Clinical Skills Center uses a standardized patient software program, CAE LearningSpace®, to assist us with event scheduling, exam management, learner evaluations and data analysis. The online, web-based system is an effective tool for continuously monitoring exam performances and case objectives. The CAE LearningSpace® assists us create checklists and questionnaires, collect student data, analyze performance, and calculate student scores. It is accessible online to faculty and students through the use of their UAMS domain password.