05:30 PM Mountain Standard Time on Friday, June 23, 2006

By Brandy Aguilar / 3TV Producer

Physician residents and nursing staff at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center are getting a chance to practice critical medical emergencies on mannequins.

They do everything from respond to heart attacks to delivering babies and even doing virtual surgeries in the new Simulation Training Center.

"It will have ICU rooms where health-care professionals can practice on code arrest,"said medical director Dr. Marshall Smith. "It will have a fully equipped operating room where they can practice different surgery procedures. It will have simulators.”

Smith said the goal to being trained in this type of environment is giving the residents a chance to make mistakes without paying any consequences.

"It allows learners to fail,"he said. "It's so difficult to learn on patients because the pressure is so high. You can't fail. You can't make a mistake.”

To make the experience even more real, the mannequins can talk and they can even be poked with all kinds of IVs.

"We make it as real as possible so that when the real time comes, it's no different for them and they’re comfortable,"Smith said.

Chelsea Crum, chief resident in training, said practicing on these mannequins and doing virtual surgery can really boost a person's confidence.

"You can re-do and do things as many times as you want so that when you do get in to do surgery, you feel so much more comfortable with the instruments,"Crum said.

The Simulation Training Center is expected to be up and running next month.

The center will also have an area where the paramedics and emergency techs can practice handing off a patient to the medical staff.