Facilities at The Morchand Center

Situated within Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, The Morchand Center is an attractively-designed suite of fully functional examination rooms, assessment stations, observation theater and conference room, which provide an ideal environment for teaching, learning, evaluation and feedback.

The Morchand Center houses seven examination rooms outfitted with wall-mounted instruments, adjustable exam tables, sink units, disposables and working telephones for phone encounters. One room features a hospital bed and a window for one-way viewing. Each room is equipped with closed-circuit digital video cameras and stereo microphones linked to a separate state-of-the art observation theater where the simulated doctor-patient interactions are monitored and digitally recorded.

The Observation Theater

Student-patient interactions can be viewed (live) in the observation theater, the heart of The Morchand Center. Custom-designed specifically to meet the needs of the Center, the theater's advanced audiovisual system serves as the eyes and ears of the program. Eight flat screen monitors, with the capability of displaying two different images simultaneously, are available for audience viewing. The theater-style seating can accommodate 10 or more faculty and/or preceptors at a time. Viewers may individually adjust the controls on their theater seats to tune into any of the examination rooms. In addition, the video technician can adjust the cameras in the examination rooms from the observation theater to observe the activity from different angles. The video technician can also communicate with the exam rooms via intercom in order to give instructions or call time warnings.

High Fidelity Simulation Mannequin

The Morchand Center also houses a high-fidelity human simulation mannequin which enables the Center to run both standard "sim" encounters (use of the mannequin alone) and hybrid encounters (use of the mannequin along with live Standardized Patients). The simulation mannequin is used to test learners' abilities to discover and evaluate abnormal or pathologic physical exam findings such as heart murmurs or lung sounds and vital signs such as blood pressure. The high-fidelity machine can also react to treatment choices trainees make with realistic physiologic responses, permitting students to practice real-time clinical decision-making. Through hybrid simulations, learners may be assessed on their ability to juggle multiple challenges — communicating with a live "patient" while simultaneously coping with stressful situations or executing complex maneuvers.