A Virtually Immersive Learning Experience to Prepare You for the Real World
Main STAR Center - 3rd Floor, AHC 3 Building – Modesto A. Maidique Campus
Simulation teaching is providing our students with an unprecedented, hands-on learning experience. This is most evident when you enter through the doors of the 20,000 square-foot Simulation Teaching and Research Center – aka STAR Center – at the Nicole Wertheim College of Nursing & Health Sciences.
You’ll think you’ve just walked into a fully operational clinic and hospital. From a prep-scrubbing station, to a 15-bed critical care unit, primary care clinic offices to operating rooms equipped with surgical instruments, the STAR Center gives students the real-world acute and primary healthcare experience without having to leave campus. Our multimodal simulation rooms replicate settings that include:
- Medical-surgical
- Critical/emergency care
- Obstetrics
- Pediatrics
- Clinic examinations
- Patient/family home settings

The Jorge and Darlene Perez Clinical Skills Lab is equipped with Laerdal SimMan® patient simulators, leading-edge healthcare equipment and task-trainers to help you build the hands-on skills needed to thrive in future practice performing:
- Vital signs
- Catheterizations
- Nasogastric and tracheostomy insertions and care
- Injections
- Wound care
- Head-to-toe health and environmental assessments
You’ll have access to “high-maintenance” patients through high-fidelity patient simulators such as Gaumard Scientific’s “Victoria” – the most advanced, life-like childbirth simulator–and Gaumard Scientific's "Family of Five" – mother, father, two children and newborn. Don’t be surprised if you’re asked to:
- Deliver a baby
- Answer a code blue to resuscitate a cardiac patient
- Intubate a child suffering from an asthma attack
- Assist with laparoscopic surgeries
And all using genuine equipment complemented by state-of-the-art simulation education technology.
Part practice, part instruction, the STAR Center features three control rooms for operating computerized patient care scenarios and monitoring your progress through video capture. After finishing simulation clinical work, you’ll meet with your instructors and other students in one of three debriefing rooms to review, evaluate and discuss outcomes of the day's simulations.

STAR Center North - 2nd Floor, AC II Building – Biscayne Bay Campus
The STAR Center North on the Biscayne Bay Campus is equipped with the same technology and simulated training/education equipment featured in our main STAR Center. It is located on the second floor of the AC II Building.
STAR BRITE: Bringing Real-world Instruction to Today’s Education
Mobile unit for modular education delivery
Our mobile STAR BRITE project extends delivery of excellence in clinical education by taking real-world patient simulation instruction to healthcare providers out in the community. Via our “Train-the-Trainer” SUV, we deliver modular courses to healthcare providers at their place of work or other designated locations throughout the region to give them onsite clinical instructions they may seek for certification, continuing education or professional advancement purposes.
