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Our facilities

The Faculty of Health Sciences offers a range of facilities that allow for real-world learning in safe environments, under the supervision of experienced staff. Some of these facilities simulate the experience of a healthcare setting to prepare you for practice, while others are functional clinics where you can directly help members of the public in Perth and regional Western Australia. We also offer specialised research facilities to support funded research projects across the University and beyond.

Anatomy and physical health laboratories

Anatomy and physical health laboratories

You’ll gain a comprehensive understanding of anatomy and how the human body works at our specialised laboratories.

Clinics

Clinics

You may undertake practical placements at our operational clinics around the Perth Metropolitan Area and apply your new knowledge to real patients under the guidance of a qualified healthcare supervisor.

Curtin university building

Midland and Kalgoorlie facilities

Our campus in Midland, to Perth’s east, and Curtin Kalgoorlie, in the Goldfields-Esperance region, are helping to address shortages in the health workforce by providing students with opportunities to learn and practice in underserviced, rural and remote settings.

Model pharmacy

Model pharmacy

If you study pharmacy, you’ll gain a competitive edge training in our multi-million-dollar model pharmacy dispensary, which simulates a range of real-life settings such as a community pharmacy.

Physical Containment Level 2 Laboratory

Physical Containment Level 2 Laboratory

This facility will allow you to develop the general and specialised skill set required for the analyses of samples and report results in the same way as an industry pathology laboratory.

Psychology laboratories

Psychology laboratories

In these laboratories, postgraduate psychology students are investigating neurodegenerative diseases and mental health conditions, and analysing the effectiveness of treatment plans.

Simulated care settings

Simulated care settings

Students and researchers in health sciences learn relevant skills in state-of-the-art facilities.

Virtual learning

Virtual learning

We’re rethinking how students can gain an enhanced understanding of their field through the latest technologies and virtual reality simulations.

Anatomy and physical health laboratories

Anatomy suite

As a health sciences student, you’ll access preserved human and bone specimens, anatomical teaching models and resources in our anatomical suite. The suite includes six teaching laboratories, which can accommodate more than 200 health science students at any time.

The suite also includes a museum space, where you can see preserved human dissections and pathological specimens, as well as dissection laboratories for you to perform anatomical dissections and study the comparative anatomies of different animals.

Motion analysis laboratory

In this laboratory, you can research activities associated with human movement. It includes an 18-camera high-speed optical motion capture system, four force platforms, wireless electromyography to assess muscle activation and function during movement, a blue screen for chroma key and space for run-through motion analysis.

Exercise physiology laboratory

This laboratory will enable you to monitor the health and fitness levels of individuals. It includes electronic treadmills, two 20-metre walking and running tracks, ECG machines to record heart activity, an expired gas analysis system, and bikes and rowing machines with ergometers.

Strength and conditioning rehabilitation laboratory

This complete suite of exercise equipment means you can help patients undergo physiotherapy and rehabilitation. It includes Western Australia’s first Cybex Bravo functional training machine, as well as free-standing weights and weight machines, to work on strength and core activation.

Take a virtual tour of our three laboratories

Clinics

Curtin Clinics Cockburn

Based south of Perth, this student-led clinic provides a variety of services to the public, including in speech pathology, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, social work, dietetics and provisional counselling psychology,

Oral Health Centre Western Australia

Run in conjunction with other tertiary education providers near the Queen Elizabeth II Medical Centre and at Mt Hendry, these centres will help give oral health students experience in providing dental services to the public.

Psychology clinics

As a trainee postgraduate psychologist, you’ll help to treat adult, adolescent and child patients with stress, anxiety, depression, phobias and anger management issues on our campus at Curtin Perth. You’ll draft treatment plans and develop strategies to help patients become more resilient.

Physiotherapy clinics

If you study physiotherapy, you’ll work with members of the community to treat musculoskeletal conditions and sports injuries in our bespoke clinic at Curtin Perth. In your final year, you can also gain work experience treating patients within Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Nedlands, to Perth’s west, and conduct examinations and develop tailored treatment plans.

Specialised exercise clinic

As an exercise and sports science student, you’ll support exercise physiologists to deliver exercise and rehabilitation programs for people who have experienced a cardiac event, or are recovering cancer patients, and clients aged 50 and above.

Speech clinics

If you study speech pathology, you’ll work in our speech and stuttering clinics at Curtin Perth, where you’ll individually assess and treat adults and children with speech, language and communication difficulties.

Midland and Kalgoorlie facilities

Curtin Midland

Our distinctive Midland campus will provide you with immersive learning facilities, including high-tech simulation suites, and connect you with nearby health services to apply your studies.

Curtin Kalgoorlie Rural Health Campus

Our new facilities in Kalgoorlie include a simulated hospital ward and rooms for clinical skills training and assessment for health sciences students. The facilities are a base for you to connect with local health agencies and gain valuable, hands-on experience in short and long-term rural training programs.

Model pharmacy

You will be provided with a workstation, computer and label generator, and dispense real medicines using simulations of real prescriptions, gaining relevant practical experience.

The pharmacy includes an advanced robotic dispensing unit, the only one of its kind being used for training purposes in Western Australia. Using robotics in this space improves the speed of dispensing medications, enhances stock management and mitigates risk.

Take a Google Maps tour of the facility

Physical Containment Level 2 Laboratory

This facility will allow you to develop the general and specialised skill set required for the analyses of samples and report results in the same way as an industry pathology laboratory.

Psychology laboratories

Curtin Neurosciences Research Laboratory

Inside this multi-disciplinary research facility, you’ll conduct studies in ageing, non-invasive brain stimulation, rehabilitation of movement and cognition, Parkinson’s Disease, stroke and exercise.

Psychology Experimental Research Laboratories

You can complement survey and questionnaire-based research with behaviour measures and evaluations from laboratory-based activities. These laboratories have soundproofed booths, consultation rooms, observation room, EEG equipment and eye-tracking equipment.

Simulated care settings

Simulated Hospital Ward

Replicating a hospital environment, our AUD$2.5 million clinical hospital ward is the perfect trainee tool for prospective nurses and midwives. The ward houses simulation rooms that mimic acute medical and surgical areas, a critical care area, and a paediatric area. The non-clinical rooms are multi-purpose, and enable you to undertake simulations such as note-taking, handover and case conferencing.

Nursing simulations

We offer a range of specialised simulation equipment including task trainers and models for trainee nurses to practice inserting catheters and cannula, to help prepare you for real fieldwork placements. We’ve also added moulage – fake blood, urine and other body fluids – to enhance the realism of student learning.

You will practice interacting with full-body, computer-controlled manikins with life-like features. The range of manikins covers the life spectrum, from babies to adults, including a pregnant woman who can birth a ‘newborn’. Several-high end manikins can generate ‘pulses’ and be made to breathe, blink, sweat and have a seizure. To further simulate practice, we often engage actors and community volunteers to deliver scenarios in our replica hospital wards and clinics.

Take a virtual tour through Google Maps

Occupational therapy and social work laboratories

We have invested AUD$9 million in learning and research facilities for our occupational therapy and social work students. You’ll get to practice client and family-centred care scenarios in realistic interprofessional settings, including realistic home environments with a variety of options for people with disabilities, and simulated work spaces for workers with a range of injuries.

Take a virtual tour through Google Maps

Virtual learning

Anatomage tables

As part of your first-year interprofessional learning, you’ll be able to cut, pinch, rotate and zoom in on a virtual human body with our Anatomage tables.

Virtual Home Visit

This game-based learning experience enables physiotherapy students to virtually visit an older adult’s home using virtual reality technology. You’ll use the technology to assess fall risks and trip hazards.

Jim the Avatar

Curtin psychology, speech pathology and physiotherapy students can practice their clinical care on ‘Jim’, a computer simulation of an elderly, retired farmer with mild dementia. Controlled by a trainer, Jim can respond to your enquiries, replicating the experience of a real clinical session.