Madison College’s Health Simulation Center is now named after former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson. A renaming ceremony was held at the Health Education and Information Technology Building on Friday, Sept. 15. Thompson, who also served as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush, spoke at the event.

After the ceremony, Thompson and his wife toured the six simulation rooms in the Health Simulation Center. Each of the rooms held a human patient simulator, a manikin designed to replicate human functions. They blink, breathe, have a pulse and make bowel sounds. A simulation mom gives birth to a simulation baby. One function they cannot do is close their mouths, which results in a permanent grimace that would be slightly off-putting on a real person.

Thompson leans in to examine a human patient simulator in one of the trauma rooms and taps the manikin’s arm. “You doing OK?” he jokes.

But everyone at the event knows the human patient simulators are more than just life-like dolls.

The human patient simulators allow for a realistic situation in various medical scenarios. They are the next best thing to a human patient, without the vulnerability of a living person. For instance, the human patient simulators respond to medication, and if given the wrong medication, they have allergic reactions.

An instructor speaking through a microphone in another room provides the patient simulator with a voice. The simulation rooms are not silent; there is dialogue between the patient and the students, as well as among the students themselves. After the team of students completes their training exercise, they debrief with their instructors about their experience and receive feedback.

The Health Simulation Center opened in 2013. Since then it has been shared among the college’s EMS, Nursing, Respiratory Therapist, Physical Therapist Assistant, Occupational Therapy Assistant, Surgical Technologist, Medical Assistant, Optometric, Dental and Radiography programs. The college is working to ensure Madison and the surrounding communities have a highly trained healthcare workforce to meet the state’s current and future needs. This effort is not going unnoticed.

“You listen to some of the stories,” said Thompson, “and you will find that graduates here are better trained, more sought-after, than some from four-year colleges not that far removed from the location of this campus.”