State-of-the-art Teaching Facilities. Located in the Dorrance Hamilton Building, in the heart of the Thomas Jefferson University campus in Center City Philadelphia, we provide the infrastructure to support the simulation and skills teaching needs of learners and faculty at the University across all disciplines. The Center is a sophisticated facility with over 60,000 square feet of learning and teaching space and ample rooms for skills attainment, structured practice, debriefing and skills assessment sessions.
Rector Clinical Skills & Simulation Center
The Center's Mission
The primary mission of the Center is to be an international leader in the development, implementation, and evaluation of curricula that use simulation in teaching and assessing the core clinical skills sets required to be a physician, nurse or health care professional and, by so doing, inspire others to teach using these tools.
The Dr. Robert and Dorothy Rector Clinical Skills & Simulation Center (Rector CSSC) of Thomas Jefferson University is positioned to be a leader in the use of simulation to teach and assess clinical skills in health care providers. Our Center is unique and includes:
A Robust Standardizd Patient Program. This program which now consists of over 130 standardized and simulated patients is integral to almost every program here at the Center. With this group we produce both skills teaching programs and formative and summative Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) for programs across the University and region. As a component of the Standarized Patients Program, we produce high-quality video-trigger tapes for teaching and assessment purposes via our innovative and highly successful Jeff Players Production Group.
Large set of simulation teaching tools. Our Center maintains and utilizes a large collection of low-fidelity and high-fidelity mechanical simulators that support skills attainment sessions and structured practice sessions for every core skills set from invasive clinical skills to communication skills to team building skills. We are able to support highly sophisticated surgical simulation training programs with equipment funded by the Measey Foundation.
Learning in an Interdisciplinary Environment. Our Center allows and fosters the interaction, curriculum development, teaching and assessment of clinical skills between faculty and learners of every health care discipline including occupational therapists, physical therapists, nurses, pharmacists and physicians in both undergraduate and graduate education. We work closely with the Jefferson Center for Interprofessional Education (JCIPE), the Asano-Gonnella Center for Research in Medical Education & Health Care (CRMEHC) and the Jefferson College of Population Health to foster this interdisciplinary environment. The Center is thus a great site for curricular synergy and innovation.
An innovative, progressive and enthusiastic faculty. The most unique feature of our center is the presence of faculty who are not only experts in simulation teaching and curricular development, but who can “breathe life” into a simulation scenario. In working with the various Colleges across the University, these faculty make certain that the skills learned at the Center translate to the bedside to improve the quality of health care.