There is a growing need for clinical skills training for students in the Faculty of Health Sciences, said vice-chancellor Dr Max Price at the recent launch of the Clinical Skills Laboratory at Groote Schuur Hospital.

Price said this was particularly the case in the pre-clinical years, where access to patients is limited.

"We need skills laboratories, and should have been doing this a long time ago," said Price, also a medical graduate.

UCT alumnus and Groote Schuur Hospital's chief executive officer, Dr Saadiq Kariem, said when UCT approached him to convert the space that now hosts the facility into a clinical skills laboratory, he found it difficult to imagine. It had not been used for a long time.

Nonetheless, he was delighted that "such an appropriate and important use" had found a home in the institution's Old Main Building.

For the faculty, the event marked an important milestone in the ongoing development of the undergraduate curriculum, and lays the foundation for the implementation of similar facilities.