Newswise — Bethesda, MD – One of America’s largest healthcare simulation centers, incorporating more than 30,000 sq. ft. of virtual reality, surgical simulation, task trainers, standardized patients, and high fidelity mannequins, will officially be dedicated as the “Val G. Hemming Simulation Center” on Monday, Nov. 18.
The Center is a model for emerging educational technologies and is part of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. It will be named in honor of Val G. Hemming, M.D., who spent more than 20 years at USU’s F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine, first as chair of the pediatrics department and later as dean of the school. Hemming is credited with spearheading efforts to establish the Simulation Center, which opened in 1999.
The Center provides approximately 34,000 hours of simulation programming each academic year and is available to all medical and nursing students, interns, residents, and other health care professionals in the USU community. By the time they graduate, learners will have participated in up to 40 different simulations.
Working with partners from the Department of Defense and other federal agencies, the Simulation Center delivers an expansive selection of training tools. Students are taught with the widest range of simulations, from living “standardized patients” to high-fidelity computerized mannequins, simulated surgical suites with task trainers (3-D replications of body parts, such as a chest cavity or abdomen), and virtual reality part-task trainers.
The Center’s Wide Area Virtual Environment (WAVE) is a large-scale immersive virtual reality theater, established through the support of a $4 million Congressional provision spearheaded by Congressman Chris Van Hollen. It combines live actors, human patient simulators, and virtual reality to provide a level of training previously not available to the medical community. It is the only facility of this size and complexity in the world. The WAVE is designed to support team training for up to 12 individuals at a time.
* * *About USU
The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, founded by an act of Congress in 1972, is the nation’s federal health sciences university and the academic heart of the Military Health System. USU students are primarily active duty uniformed officers in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Public Health Service who receive specialized education in tropical and infectious diseases, TBI and PTSD, disaster response and humanitarian assistance, global health, and acute trauma care in addition to their regular medical school curriculum. A large percentage of the University’s alumni are supporting operations around the world, offering their leadership and expertise. The University has a robust research program that covers a wide range of areas important to both the military and public health. For more information about USU and its programs, visit www.usuhs.edu.
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