LSSUCity Commissioners heard a presentation last night regarding an ambitious project at Lake Superior State University. Director of Simulation Education Jodi Orm talked about a Simulation Center, aimed at incorporating simulation and health care education. Orm says the idea has been actually been a number of years in the making…

The five high-fidelity mannequins are just one of many things used to simulate the hands-on medical training experience. The proposed 20 thousand square foot facility would also have an ambulance bay similar to the one War Memorial Hospital has. A smaller, yet similar form of simulation education is happening now on a temporary basis in the university’s SmartZone. One hundred and fifty students in the nursing program and about another dozen from the paramedic program are involved since the temporary space opened last year. The Simulator Center would be constructed on Easterday Avenue across from Brady Hall. Orm talks about what would be the main attraction at the center — a 37 hundred square foot ‘virtual hospital’…

The center would also have space for Certification/EMS Training, administrative space and space for Immersive Interprofessional Education. Benefits of the Simulation Center not only include an increase in enrolment, but to train a younger workforce that is needed in the near future — 40 percent of local nurses right now are ‘baby boomers’. While simulation education involving paramedic and nursing students in happening now, a full-fledged centre would cost a lot of money. Orm says a campaign is underway to try to make that facility become a reality — without any state dollars coming in…

Community response has been very good so far towards the campaign. No timelines or names of the donors interested were announced.

Find out more: www.lssu.edu/foundation