The new Medical School The new Medical School is one of only three new free-standing medical schools in the country and the only one in the North West, the undergraduate programme complementing the University’s well-established postgraduate medical degrees.

The expansion opens the door for many more students to gain high-quality medical education and training. Undergraduate medical courses are currently heavily oversubscribed and this will open up new opportunities for many aspiring doctors and medical professionals.

The project involved the complete remodelling and refurbishment of an existing building on the University Campus. Drama by Design were engaged by the University to carry out the detailed design, co-ordination project management, testing and commissioning of all the AV systems throughout the building. This included both standard teaching AV systems and the specialist video capture/playback/de-brief system for monitoring student work.

The medical school building incorporates a number of hospital style wards, including one for Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). These rooms are equipped with a camera and microphone on each bed plus a general camera to pick-up movement around the ward. There are also loudspeakers in the room which can be used for talkback or for creating background noise.

Patient simulator manikins can be connected to the system to enable the vital signs to be recorded alongside the cameras. Everything is stored on a central server enabling the recorded videos to be viewed anywhere on campus.

The building also features an operating theatre and anatomy room, both fitted with cameras and microphones. The Anatomy room also incorporates a full teaching AV system with lectern, projector and screen plus two repeater screens. The AV systems is linked to two Anatomage virtual dissection tables to enable the output from these to be viewed on any of the screens for review.

A Radiology suite on the top floor is equipped with a 4K teaching system allowing review of high definition images. The room and AV systems can be divided into two for use as two separate spaces or joined as one large space.

Throughout the building there are flexible learning spaces for group study and review/debrief of recordings. The rooms are all equipped with a small display screen and wall mounted lectern. They also have a camera and microphone for lecture capture.