Europe's First Human Simulator at Glamorgan

June 19, 2008

The University of Glamorgan is now home to Europe’s first ‘iStan’, a state-of-the-art human patient simulator which can help trainee medical professionals to gain as close to real-life experience of treating a patient as possible without working on the real thing.

Based at the Faculty of Health, Sport & Science at the University, iStan is a revolutionary development and brings an unmatched and previously impossible level of realism to the use of simulation in health professional education.

Designed from the inside out, iStan has a human-like skeletal structure that provides true-to-life articulated motion. Spine, neck, arms and hips all move with incredible life-like accuracy.

Modelled from a unique cast of a real person, the skin of iStan acts, looks and feels like real human skin. iStan is fully wireless and battery operated and offers the portability and versatility to conduct simulation training in a wide range of real-world situations.

Students at Glamorgan will be the first in the UK to have access to this form of training which will prepare them in a unique way for their careers in the medical profession.

iStan is located in the Glamorgan Clinical Simulation Centre which is a purpose-built teaching facility that has been carefully designed to authentically replicate a range of clinical practice settings typically found in NHS trusts.

The wards and clinical areas are equipped with the latest health technologies and equipment and provide a safe environment in which students can develop their skills under the supervision of clinical experts.

In 2005 the Centre became the first in Wales to acquire the highly sophisticated Human Patient Simulator or HPS from US-based Medical Education Technologies Inc. (METI). The HPS is one of the world’s most advanced tools for teaching and hands-on training for health professionals. The iStan is the latest version of this impressive technology.

Professor Donna Mead, Dean of Faculty of Health, Sport and Science said, “iStan will be a key resource for our Centre and will take simulation training for health professionals to a new and exciting level of realism.”

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