PEORIA -- With the number of people admitted to hospitals decreasing and their hospital stays growing shorter, nursing education programs have had to turn to high-tech innovations for opportunities to provide clinical training for students. Enter Samuel D. Seuss, a make-believe patient in Methodist College of Nursing's newest simulation center. Depending on the day and the class, Seuss' "lungs" can be programmed to exhibit symptoms of emphysema, his jaws can be tightened to mimic problems associated with meningitis, or he can be set up to sweat, cough, moan, have a seizure or tell a fumbling young nursing student to "Go away." "They're so lifelike, they have veins," Kimberly Johnston, president of the college of nursing, said of the high-fidelity mannequin in the school's new simulation center. Think of it as the crash-test dummy goes to the hospital. Students can practice a skill repeatedly on Seuss, unlike a real patient. The simulation center is an extension of the nursing school's learning resource center, which began using the human-patient simulators for nursing classes in 2005. But it's also an example of how simulated education is becoming a virtual reality in training nurses, doctors and other health care professionals. OSF Saint Francis Medical Center and the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria recently broke ground on a new $51 million project that will offer state-of-the-art simulated scenarios - ranging from on-screen surgeries in 3-D to high-tech manikins - for medical students, nursing students, emergency medical technicians and other health care staff. The Jump Trading Simulation and Conference Education Center, as it's known, is scheduled to open sometime in 2012 on the St. Francis campus next to Children's Hospital of Illinois. Methodist nursing school's new simulation center is on the eighth floor of Methodist Medical Center in a section originally designed for, but never used as, an intensive care unit. The center has 10 patient rooms. Seuss and two other high fidelity mannequins have private rooms. The center also includes seven other mannequins with more limited functions and a virtual IV classroom. Simulated education has been a trend in nursing education for years, according to Denise Poland, a nurse at Methodist for more than 20 years who became the clinical simulation specialist in June. "But it's been going gang busters for the last two years," she said. For all of the advantages of simulated education, Johnston and Poland note that it doesn't replace real-world experience of dealing with a patient and, typically, his or her family. "We still truly value the clinical experience," Johnston said. Poland said mannequins, high-tech or low, are just one tool of simulated education. She envisions using them to teach cross-cultural health care practices and bringing in theater students to act out some of the scenarios she's programmed into the hospitalized versions. As the use of virtual and simulated education techniques grows in the Peoria area, Poland foresees a simulated education consortium. "We can all learn from and help each other." Photo one: FRED ZWICKY/JOURNAL STAR -- Students at the Methodist College of Nursing now have the opportunity to learn using the latest in high-fidelity mannequins that can mimic a wide range of body functions. Clinical simulation specialist Denise Poland said the technology takes the pressure of life and death off the students, allowing them to learn how to deal with extreme conditions without severe outcomes. Poland, left, shows nursing student Nicole Crawford how you can feel the pulse in all of the normal places. Photo two: FRED ZWICKY/JOURNAL STAR -- Clinical simulation specialist Denise Poland controls the hi-fidelty simulator from a laptop, allowing an instructor to change conditions in real time.Photo three: FRED ZWICKY/JOURNAL STAR -- Students at the Methodist College of Nursing now have the opportunity to learn on the latest technology in sims, a variety of high-tech patient simulators that can mimic a wide range of body functions. Clinical simulation specialist Denise Poland said the technology takes the pressure of life and death off of the students, allowing them to learn how to deal with extreme conditions without severe outcomes. Poland, left, shows nursing student Nicole Crawford how you can feel the pulse in all of the normal places. Pam Adams can be reached at 686-3245 or padams@pjstar.com.