Virtual Simulation or a Physical Skills Lab? How to Compare Them Fairly

When an accreditation visit is coming or student numbers are rising, the question arrives on the dean's desk: do we build more lab, or do we buy simulation software? The honest answer is that they do different jobs, and the comparison is only fair if you compare the right things.

Compare the cost per student-hour of practice, not the purchase price

A physical lab has a large up-front cost and then continuing ones: consumables, repairs, replacement parts, a technician, electricity, the room itself. Software is usually licensed per student per year, with the headsets as the main equipment cost.

The useful number is how much each hour of real practice costs per student. A lab that is expensive but used by five students at a time gives few practice hours. Work out, for each option, how many hours of hands-on practice one student will actually get in a semester, and divide.

Ask what happens when something breaks

Imported equipment depends on imported parts and visiting engineers. Many institutions have equipment that worked for two years and has sat unused since. Ask of any option: who repairs it, how long does that take, and what do students do in the meantime? Software and standalone headsets have fewer things to fail, and a headset can be replaced in a day.

Count how many students can practise at once

This is where the two differ most. A lab's capacity is fixed by its floor area and its equipment. Simulation scales with the number of headsets or computers, and the same licence lets students practise outside class hours.

Be clear what each is best for

Neither replaces the other entirely.

• Physical lab: touch and force, such as cannulation, suturing and manual handling
• Virtual simulation: procedures, sequence and decision-making, such as positioning, exposure selection, emergency protocols and anatomy
• Virtual simulation: anything dangerous or rare, such as radiation, deteriorating patients and uncommon examinations
• Both: assessment, with simulation giving a recorded, comparable result for every student

Questions to ask your own institution

Before deciding, a department should be able to answer these.

• How many hours of hands-on practice does each student get now?
• Which skills in the syllabus do students currently graduate without having practised?
• How reliable are our power and internet, and does the option we are considering depend on them?
• Who on staff will own it, and do they have the time?

A common conclusion

Most institutions that go through this exercise end up with both, in different proportions: a modest physical lab for the skills that need touch, and simulation for everything that needs repetition. The mistake is to treat it as a choice between the two before working out what the students are actually short of.