Facilities and Affiliated Hospitals

Schwitalla Hall is the administrative home to the Saint Louis University School of Medicine and is accessible from the Saint Louis University Medical Center via the Margaret Doisy Learning Resource Center. (Note that security at the Learning Resource Center requires a SLU ID badge; outside visitors must sign in and meeting locations are documented.) If you have any questions, call 314-977-8438.

The 30,000-square-foot state-of-the-art Health Sciences Education Union is located in the heart of the Saint Louis University Medical Center. Its tiered 225-seat auditorium is designed to give students the ability to move around and form teams for group discussions. Computer connections and outlets are at every seat.

The building is designed to bring together medical, nursing, allied health, public health and graduate dental students for interprofessional education. It features:

• Two student lounge areas — one designed for socializing and the other for quiet study
• A café-style restaurant
• 11 patient exam rooms where students can practice working with patients and review their interactions via a high-tech camera system
• A state-of-the-art auditorium with a 25-panel high definition video screen that is wired for video conferencing

SLU’s Clinical Skills Center was the first of its kind in North America. Located on the second floor of the Health Sciences Education Union, it’s used for the teaching and assessment of clinical skills such as history taking and physical examination.

In addition to more 2,000 square feet of space, the Clinical Skills Center contains 11 examination rooms complete with exam table, sink, panoptic ophthalmascopes, sphygmomanometer and other state-of-the-art examination equipment. Monitoring rooms provide direct visualization via video cameras, recording equipment and microphones.

The Clinical Skills Center uses standardized patients, people trained to teach and assess clinical skills from the patient's perspective, giving good advice about ways to approach patients in a sensitive and compassionate manner. Using standardized patients does not replace work done with real patients during the pre-clinical years but, rather, enhances students' skills and comfort in the clinical setting. Difficult situations such as discussing life support can be practiced prior to confronting them in real patients. 

SLU’s Medical Center Library is located on the second floor of the Learning Resources Center. In addition to an impressive catalog, it offers access to subscription services, databases and tools including PubMed, AccessMedicine, Ovid, ClinicalKey, core electronic textbooks and has two liaison librarians dedicated to the School of Medicine.

Located in the Learning Resource Center, SLU’s School of Medicine simulation lab provides a realistic, safe learning environment for medical students, clinicians and health care professionals at all levels of practice. The lab integrates the latest advances in technology with the curriculum for advanced medical training. It is comprised of the Patient Simulator Laboratory, featuring the Human Patient Simulator, and the Difficult Airway Management Laboratory.

Resources from the lab are integrated into the resident and medical student curriculum and incorporated into the educational training of health care professionals from multidisciplinary specialties.

Faculty, residents and medical students use our Difficult Airway Lab to practice and perfect their knowledge and skills of airway management while the top-of-the-line, fully automatic, high-fidelity human patient simulator is specifically designed for training in anesthesia, respiratory and critical care. The human simulator provides respiratory gas exchange, anesthesia delivery and patient monitoring with real physiological clinical monitors. It also features:

• Pupils that automatically dilate and constrict in response to light for neurological assessment
• Realistic airway including breakaway teeth
• Trachea with realistic anatomical landmarks
• Realistic sounds of respiration and heart beat
• Automatic recognition and response to administered drugs and drug dosages
• Variable lung compliance and airways resistance
• Automatic response to needle decompression of a tension pneumothorax, chest tube drainage and pericardiocentesis
• Automatic control of urine output
• Thumb twitch in response to a peripheral nerve stimulator
• For questions or additional information about the lab, contact Wesley Burch, educational specialist, at 314-977-8445 or wesley.burch@health.slu.edu.  

SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital is a 365-bed, tertiary-care hospital and referral center, serving the population within a 150-mile radius of St. Louis. It has one of the most comprehensive organ transplant programs in the Midwest, offering kidney, kidney-pancreas, liver, bone marrow and cornea transplants.

The hospital is a certified Level I trauma center in both Missouri and Illinois. Treating more than 2,300 major trauma cases each year, it operates the largest trauma program in the bi-state area. The hospital has 16 operating rooms, three endoscopy suites and a busy interventional radiology department. Operating rooms are equipped with state-of-the-art equipment, including the latest hemodynamic monitoring and an advanced, computerized data-acquisition system.

Each of the five patient floors is designed around an intensive care unit with a unique focus: clinical neuroscience, cardiovascular recovery, surgery, coronary care and medicine. Computerized tomography (CT) scanners, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) units, the Cyberknife, positron emission tomagraphy (PET) units and linear accelerators provide additional training.

SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital is home to SLU’s Department of Anesthesiology and Division of Pediatric Anesthesiology. The hospital is a Level I pediatric trauma center and Level III neonatal intensive care unit. SLU staff administers more than 11,000 anesthetics annually for patients requiring a wide variety of operative interventions.

The Missouri Regional Poison Center at SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital provides a statewide service that is free of charge to the public and health care professionals and is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Since its inception in 1974, the Missouri Regional Poison Center has handled more than two million cases. Currently the center handles more than 160,000 cases each year. The center is funded by SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Hospital, the Missouri Hospital Association, federally funded grants, industry contracts and private contributions. It is certified by the American Association of Poison Control Centers.