It's alive! Not really, but the i-STAN is a great way to train USCB nursing students

He's not human, but he can talk, breathe, blink, bleed, urinate, sweat and have a heart attack -- and all at once, if necessary.

His name is i-Stan, and he's the latest in simulation technology, a tool the University of South Carolina Beaufort plans to add to its nursing program.

The school will offer a four-year bachelor's of nursing degree beginning in January. To accommodate new students, USCB is constructing a second floor in the Science and Technology Building. It will include 21,097 square feet of space for classrooms and a virtual hospital.

The hospital will allow students to learn in a safe environment and make mistakes without harming real patients, said nursing instructor Mary Ann Jarmulowicz.

Created by Florida-based Medical Education Technologies, i-Stan is nearly 6 feet tall and weighs 130 pounds. He is built on a skeleton, molded off an actual person, and has porous, soft skin. He can simulate any type of medical emergency, from heart attacks and strokes to neurological disorders or trauma situations. He also comes with exchangeable genitals.

The technology costs more than $90,000 with audio-visual equipment to record the procedures and accompanying computer software.

Similar technology is used at the Technical College of the Lowcountry. TCL built a training lab with hospital beds, a nurses' station and simulation patients, thanks to a $1.5 million statewide health initiative for technical colleges.

Susan Williams, USCB nursing department chairman, said the school will only need one patient simulation unit because small classes of four students would use it at one time.

The virtual hospital, scheduled to open in December, will be equipped with eight beds and two intensive care units separated by an observation room.

Nursing instructors would operate the simulation technology software in the observation room while students have to react in ICU, Williams said.

"In this environment, it's teamwork," Jarmulowicz said. "We have a group of students that go into the scenario together and they learn how to make critical judgments."