ATCHISON, Kan. - Like pilots who spend hours in flight simulators, nurses have a similar method that allows training in a safe environment.

When students can't train with live patients in clinical exercises, high-tech mannequins are used to enhance learning experiences in the lab. The newer simulators can produce a variety of sickness scenarios that students might not have a chance to see in clinicals.

Highland Community College's nursing program at the Northeast Kansas Technical Center in Atchison has a mock hospital ward filled with dummies. Some of these high-tech mannequins have pulses. The newest, delivered last week, bleeds and sweats.

The center brought in two new SimMan simulators (one is an infant mannequin) last spring that display chest movements, breathing and bowel sounds, heartbeat, pulse in the wrist, groin and feet, blood pressure, screams, moans, a swelling tongue and lock jaw. Cables are attached to the mannequins from a computer that controls behaviors and transmits data.

"We're only limited to the imagination of the instructor," said Janean Bowan, director of the nursing department at the technical center.

The newest mannequin, called SimMan 3G, was ordered months ago, built in Norway to specification, and arrived at the Technical Center last week. The new model is wireless, does everything the previous model does, plus it has fingerprints, dilating pupils, produces urine (which is actually tea) and reacts to medication. It comes with 10 scenarios programmed into the software, and instructors can make their own. For instance, nursing instructor Wendy Woolston requires her students to have experience treating cystic fibrosis, but it's not often that they see that in patients in clinicals. The mannequin, however, can be programmed to show the appropriate symptoms.

"In clinical settings, we hover," Ms. Woolston said. "In this case, we can turn them loose and make them think on their own."

The $80,000 SimMan 3G was acquired through a grant and school funds and is the only one of its kind in the state of Kansas.

Missouri Western State University's nursing program also utilizes mannequins to fill the gaps and provide training in a safe environment. They've got one that simulates childbirth, said Dr. Kathleen O'Connor-Andrews, chair of the nursing department.

Like the Technical Center, Western received a SimMan 3G last week and is waiting for its creators at Laerdal Medical to train faculty.

"It certainly doesn't take the place of real-life clinical experiences," she said. "But I think it will do a better job of preparing students to go to clinical."

Jimmy Myers can be reached at jimmym@npgco.com.