TCC opens health professions center in Virginia Beach

VIRGINIA BEACH

The patient blinked, but he wasn't alive. In fact, he wasn't even human.

Despite this shortcoming, "Stan the Man," a lifelike doll that responds to a medical student's prodding, came through his intubation swimmingly on Monday morning. Students at Tidewater Community College performed the breathing tube procedure in a simulation laboratory - just one of the bells and whistles in the college's new Regional Health Professions Center.

"It's a little nerve-racking because you have people's lives in your hands," said Alesha Kerley, a respiratory therapy student who worked on Stan during the center's grand opening Monday morning.

"But it's exciting to start to do our job."

College officials and local luminaries who dedicated the new building touted it as a leap forward in fitting Hampton Roads students into health care fields desperate for well-trained workers.

It cost $29.6 million to build the center and pack it with cutting-edge labs and medical equipment that, college leaders said, will prepare students for emerging jobs in sonography (diagnosing using sound waves), radiography (taking X-rays), and all kinds of medical assisting.

"There is no more hopeful act for a community than the opening of a new educational facility," TCC President Deborah DiCroce said.

More than 8,000 TCC students are preparing for health careers. The new building positions the college to double its output of health care professionals, DiCroce said.

The three-story facility sprawls over 65,000 square feet on TCC's Virginia Beach campus. Students began classes there in August.

While Kerley and her classmates revived Stan, students in the physical therapy rooms practiced muscle testing, lying on specially designed therapy tables and lifting each other's arms and legs.

Downstairs, radiography class members positioned one another in front of a sophisticated X-ray machine, without actually taking X-rays. Just two machines like it are being used in Tidewater, but more will be soon, said a director for the program.

Down the hall, a two-story apartment with a kitchen, stairs, bathroom and specialized equipment - including a bathtub lift - awaited students learning about in-home occupational therapy. Amanda Leo, a teacher in the program, said new equipment like exercise machines and woodworking tools will help students learn to treat patients like those recovering from strokes.

College leaders see the building as a bridge to health providers in the community - hospitals, labs and other organizations that might come in and work with students. DiCroce and others hope the new facility could be a gateway to partnerships with those groups, where students can learn from professionals and vice versa.

That sounds good to Marie Dumka. As she monitored Stan the Man on Monday, she said she plans to leave the health professions center ready to work.

"With the simulations and the clinicals and the classroom time, everyone in our class is very well prepared," she said.

Elisabeth Hulette, 757-222-5097, elisabeth.hulette@pilotonline.com