Using the App

Clinical Advisory Simulator

Premium tool. Open from /training-dashboard → Clinical Advisory Simulator or directly at /clinical-advisory-simulator.

Band 6 and 7 BMSs routinely take phone calls from clinicians asking for laboratory advice. This simulator drills the boundary between operational advice (which the BMS can give) and clinical decision advice (which must come from a consultant).

The 9 tabs

The simulator is organised into nine tabs:

1. Scenarios — AI-generated clinician calls; the core practice mode
2. Escalation — when and how to defer to the laboratory consultant or on-call clinician
3. Documentation — recording calls correctly for the audit trail
4. Difficult Callers — handling pressure, disagreement, and abusive callers
5. SBAR Guide — non-AI reference for the SBAR communication framework
6. Critical Values — non-AI reference for critical-value phoning protocol (overlaps with article 50)
7. Assessment — formal scored assessment
8. Progress — your historical attempts and scores
9. Achievements — badges for completed scenarios

Tabs 1–4 use AI-generated content; tabs 5–9 are reference / progress views.

What the Scenarios tab does

• Generates a realistic clinician phone call (junior doctor, registrar, GP, A&E consultant, theatre)
• Asks you a series of questions the clinician puts to you
• Tracks whether your answers stay within scope
• Flags when you should defer to the laboratory consultant or on-call clinician
• Logs the attempt to your Progress tab when you complete it

Scope boundaries

In scope for the BMS

• Sample type and tube requirements
• Specimen handling (transport, timing, fixative, container)
• Test repertoire — what tests are available
• Result interpretation at the technical level (units, reference range, analyser specifics)
• Add-on test feasibility on existing samples
• Turnaround times
• Identifying need for further testing (e.g. "your TFT pattern suggests adding anti-TPO")
• Critical-value communication (per article 50 protocol)

Out of scope — refer to consultant or clinician

• Specific patient diagnosis or management plan
• Drug dosing
• Whether the patient should receive a specific treatment
• Whether to admit, discharge, or escalate care
• Genetic counselling content
• Specific clinical investigations the clinician should now order
• Treatment guidelines for the patient's condition

Scenarios covered

• A junior doctor calls about a "weird" troponin pattern
• A GP asks whether they should send a sample privately
• A theatre nurse asks if a sample can be used for crossmatch given concerns
• A consultant asks for an opinion on an EQA-difficult result
• A pharmacist asks about therapeutic drug monitoring sample timing
• An on-call surgeon asks about coagulation interpretation pre-op

Documentation

Every clinical advisory call should be documented:

• Time and date
• Caller identity and grade
• Question asked
• Advice given
• Anyone consulted (your consultant, on-call)
• Onward action

The simulator generates this record.

Standards alignment

• HCPC Standards of Proficiency for Biomedical Scientists (September 2023) — scope of practice
• IBMS Code of Professional Conduct
• GMC Good Medical Practice (relevant when interacting with medical colleagues)
• ISO 15189:2022 clause 7.6 (Complaints) and clause 8 (information management)

Bands and competency mapping

• Band 5 — handle basic operational queries; refer everything else
• Band 6 — handle most operational queries; structured deferral on clinical questions
• Band 7 — confident scope-of-practice operator; mentor junior BMSs

Common interview question themes

• "Walk me through how you handle a clinician asking you to make a clinical decision"
• "When do you defer to the lab consultant?"
• "How do you document a clinical advisory call?"
• "Tell me about a time you had to push back on a clinician"

Pair the Clinical Advisory Simulator with the Virology Phone Simulator (which focuses on infectious-disease-specific advice scenarios).