New baby simulator launches for Mohawk College medical students

A new baby simulator is providing students at Mohawk College with hands-on learning.

Laura Thomas, the Associate Dean for Allied Health says “This is our baby works simulator it comes from intelligent ultrasound, it is our newest addition to our simulation lab.”

The idea of the simulator is to prepare students for the real world.

“So typically a student would learn in a textbook or maybe even videos in class of what the anatomy looks like and how it responds but then they would go into the clinical environment and that would be the first time ever they put a transducer on a child.”

The simulator costs $72,000 and the money was donated by the Mohawk College Foundation.

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Jennifer Burton, a diagnostic cardiac sonography professor at the college says the ‘Baby Works’ simulator does more than help students mimic real life scanning but it also allows students to do training in a “stress free and more relaxed atmosphere as they learn how to handle an infant.”

Jacqueline Wheatley, an instructor with the program, says the simulator is a great learning opportunity for the students. Wheatley says having a baby in the program removes the stress from the learning environment, “what we are able to provide them now is, that it’s a very calm environment.”

The ‘Baby Works’ simulator uses 3D models of the heart and brain in real time, allowing students to practice vital organ examinations safely.

Thomas says, “it’s been an amazing opportunity and we wanted to bring awareness to the community by doing a baby naming campaign. The goal is to come up with a good name for this baby… with a good reason as to why you chose that name.”

Mohawk College is welcoming name suggestions and they can do that online. More information about the baby simulator can be found on the Mohawk College website.