Undergraduate education at St Helier Hospital

The clinical communications suite is is designed to provide teaching facilities for healthcare professionals to improve their communications skills and enhance the quality of patient care. Professor Michael Farthing, Principal of St George’s Medical School, University of London officially opened the suite in June 2004. The manager of the suite is Anne Laurie who also lectures in Clinical Communication.

The suite is housed on the fourth floor of Ferguson House at St Helier Hospital. It is signposted from the stairs near the main entrance to Ferguson House and also via the central stairwell. 

Facilities and aids

The suite allows for consultations/interviews with either simulated patients or hospital patients in surroundings that mimic clinical practice i.e. counselling room, GP surgery or ward.

The two interviewing rooms and two of the clinical cubicles in the clinical teaching suite are linked via camera and sound to both seminar rooms.

Each seminar room can record action taking place in any of the four rooms. This action can be viewed in real time or played back from a video recorder.

Seminar room 2 provides space for up to 18 people, seminar room 3 provides space for up to 13 people. The facilities in each seminar room can also accommodate laptops, hand-held cameras and many other audio-video equipment.

Additional teaching aids:

• Ceiling-mounted digital projector 

• Laptop computer for PowerPoint presentations 

• OHP 

• 35mm slide projector 

• Video projector 

• Flipcharts 

• Whiteboards 

• Ability to use AV equipment.

Who is the suite for?

• Undergraduate medical students

• Nursing directorate 

• Student nurses

• Postgraduate medical centre 

• Pre-registration house officers

• Other junior doctors

• Allied professional groups i.e. paramedics, ODAs

• Physiotherapy students

• Student radiographers

• Other professionals allied to medicine 

• Patient Advisory Liaison Service (PALS)

• Trust corporate educational groups.

The clinical teaching suite is designed to provide an area where students and trainees have first class learning opportunities with an emphasis on acquiring clinical skills.

The suite is housed on the fourth floor of Ferguson House, St Helier Hospital. It is signposted from the stairs near the main entrance to Ferguson House and also via the central stairwell.

The Baroness Cumberlege of Newick officially opened the suite in November 2000. 

Teaching facilities and aids

• An open-plan teaching area for 16-20 people with five adjoining clinical cubicles, each with a bed

• A seminar room for up to 12 people

• The suite is fitted with all the necessary audio-visual equipment plus x-ray viewing screens to all areas

• Digital projector for laptop and video presentations

• Flipcharts and whiteboards 

• 35mm slide projector 

• OHP 

• White viewing screens 

• TV and video combination 

• Clinical and anatomical teaching models.

Who is the suite for?

• Medical students

• Pre-registration house officers

• Student and trained nurses

• Physiotherapy students 

• Student radiographers 

• Other professionals allied to medicine.

The suite is being used for:

• Doctors (grand round undergraduate teaching and objective structured clinical examinations (OSCE) practices).

• Weekly undergraduate tutorials

• Exams: MB,BS, final paper presentations

• A&E casualty senior house officers suturing sessions 

• Graduate entry programme pilot courses with St George’s in rheumatology and dermatology

• Hospital departmental group meetings

• Education committee meetings.

Other sessions include:

• Nursing recruits' induction and practice days 

• Leg ulcer and pressure area prevention study days

• Catheter care study day 

• Infection control linked nurses monthly sessions

• Physiotherapy stoke awareness and care day

• Professional and hospital filmmaking.