Northern Clinical School - Kolling Building
The Northern Clinical School relocated in October 2008 to the new Kolling Building at Royal North Shore Hospital. This building is currently the largest and most up-to-date structure housing research and education facilities on a hospital site anywhere in Australia.
A particularly advanced feature of the building is the sophisticated IT and audiovisual installation, allowing for videoconferencing in most of the larger teaching spaces, as well as some of the meeting rooms. This will allow great flexibility for conducting educational sessions and administrative meetings within the University, across the Northern Sydney Central Coast Area, and to interstate and international venues.
The building is also designed to provide an above-ground connection to the clinical treatment areas of the future acute hospital, with allowance for a bridge link at level 5. The ground floor opens on to an outdoor plaza which will eventually provide a ground level public space for movement around the rebuilt Hospital campus.
The ground floor, called level 4 to align with the corresponding level of the future hospital, houses the Douglas Piper Library, as well as student facilities, and accommodation for the Medical Illustrations Department and the support staff for audiovisual and information technology services. A spacious foyer contains a reception desk and information station.
The first floor (level 5) features the teaching spaces shared by key user groups, and includes:
- a 202-seat auditorium, with double-screen projection and videoconferencing facilities.
- two connected 45-seat lecture rooms (Norman Nock Lecture Rooms 1 and 2) which can be used separately or together.
- a 68-seat interactive lecture theatre in horseshoe configuration (the Wallace Freeborn Lecture Theatre).
- 11 small group tutorial rooms, each seating 10 people and including a USyd computer workstation and data projection facilities.
- a 30-seat seminar room.
- a computer learning centre, with training desks for 10 workstations.
- the Pathology Museum.
The second floor (level 6) is totally occupied by the Sydney Clinical Skills and Simulation Centre, rehousing and amalgamating the former Northern Clinical Skills Centre and the Sydney Medical Simulation Centre. This state-of-the-art facility for clinical skills and procedural training incorporates:
- a 90 sqm training lab, with teaching table monitored by closed-circuit video, and 10 laparoscopic towers
- 5 skills laboratories, each 30-55 sqm
- 2 immersive learning suites, providing high-fidelity simulations of operating theatre and emergency room environments
- a communication skills room
- a debriefing room
- seminar rooms
- staff offices
- extensive audiovisual and videoconferencing facilities
The third floor (level 7) provides accommodation for the administrative staff of the Northern Clinical School and the Area’s Organisational Education and Learning unit. The floor also houses the Pam McLean Centre, specialising in teaching clinical communication skills, a boardroom, and offices for the key academics overseeing the research and education programs in the building.
Laboratory research is housed on the upper floors of the building. Each of levels 8 to 13 is designed and configured similarly, incorporating:
- over 100 metres of bench space for general laboratory procedures.
- on the southern side, separate laboratories housing specialised equipment.
- on the northern side, office space and accommodation for heads of research groups, postdoctoral scientists, research assistants and postgraduate research students.