Visiting our beautiful and secluded campus and seeing all that our pharmacy students have available to them is a unique experience. As a pharmacy student in our curriculum, you will spend your time in several different buildings, as you learn the science of how medications work in the body, as well as practice your communication skills so you can deliver effective patient-centered care.

Clinical Simulation Center

Located in Cardinal Hall, this facility includes numerous patient exam rooms, hospital simulation rooms, operating rooms, and a multipurpose room, plus dedicated classrooms and faculty monitoring rooms. Our pharmacy students use this facility in every quarter of their on-campus curriculum, including courses in Interprofessional Education, Clinical Skills, Introductory to Pharmacy Practice Experiences (IPPE), and Pharmacotherapeutics.

All simulated environments are equipped with recording devices, so that faculty can view and assess students’ clinical skills. Students may also view their videos for self-reflection. The goals of the Clinical Simulation Center include:

• Enabling students to develop skills in history-taking, physical exam and patient education as well as communication through practical experience.
• Emphasizing the importance of establishing a caring, trusting, sensitive manner necessary for a positive patient-provider relationship.
• Challenging students in critical/high stress environments.
• Encouraging and training students to work in interdisciplinary teams.

Clinic-based examination rooms are equipped with tools and supplies found in outpatient clinical settings. Pharmacy students often meet with “standardized patients” who are actors trained to portray a given scenario and later provide additional feedback to students after the simulated patient encounters.

Computers just outside each exam room provide patient histories for pharmacy student review just prior to entering the room.

Five different hospital-based and/or critical care environments, which include a Labor and Delivery Room, all include manikins that have measurable vital signs, the ability to answer pharmacy students’ questions, and on faculty demand, require student-led emergency interventions.

To see more, click on this video orientation to our simulated hospital environment.

The Multipurpose Room is used for small group instruction on various skills, such as the use of ultrasounds, electrocardiograms, otoscopes/ophthalmoscopes, and blood-pressure measurement.

Compounding Labs

Located in Centennial Hall on the second floor, these labs offer pharmacy students the opportunity to learn and practice techniques associated with creating medications for patient use.

This is the main teaching laboratory.  All first-year students take two courses that utilize this lab: Drug Dosage Form Design and Institutional Pharmacy.  In Drug Dosage Form Design, students learn the basic techniques of extemporaneous compounding, which allows the pharmacist to customize medications for individual patients when commercial dosage forms are not appropriate due to dosage strength, allergies to inactive ingredients, challenges with ingestion, etc. 

Technology is leveraged to maximize student learning of proper techniques in medication compounding. This live demonstration (note the instructor in the background) allows for easy viewing by all students throughout the room.

This is a laminar flow hood which is used to reconstitute medications and prepare IV medications for patients. Air flow comes through a HEPA filter at the back and flows towards the front of the hood. Using special handling techniques, a pharmacist can prepare sterile materials. This is the most common type of hood used for preparing sterile materials. Cameras posted above allow for faculty assessment of appropriate techniques.

This is a class II biological safety cabinet, which is used for preparing sterile compounds of hazardous materials such as cancer chemotherapy drugs. It can also be used to manipulate low level biological samples. Unlike the laminar flow hood, the biological safety cabinet isolates the hazardous material from the preparer as well as keeping the product sterile. Cameras are mounted inside that allow for faculty assessment of correct techniques.

Many of our pharmacy students work with faculty on research. Those that are laboratory-based are often done in the University’s Core Research Facility in Science Hall, as well as additional labs in Centennial Hall.

Additional campus sites can be found on the Downers Grove Campus Virtual Tour.

Because visiting our campus is challenging at the moment given the concerns with COVID-19, we are happy to answer your questions at any time. If you would like to learn more about our campus, curriculum, student life, research opportunities, etc., please feel free to reach out:

Ms. Damienne Souter
dsoute@midwestern.edu
630-971-6417

Your questions will be forwarded to the faculty, students, and staff best able to answer you in a timely fashion. We look forward to meeting you in the future!