Medical students recently began using the new Novant Health Simulation Lab in Wilmington to train in mock operating rooms.

The lab was set up in a renovated two-story former bank near Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center’s South 17th Street campus. It includes the mock OR, a viewing area for observing teaching physicians and space for simulations that can be tailored to different levels of care, according to a news release.

The training OR contains an anesthesia cart, surgical light and ultrasound machine to “simulate the real thing as part of an expanded educational space to support physicians training at Novant Health residency programs,” the release stated.

“We created a multidisciplinary space that follows the continuum of care, from an outpatient exam room in a clinic to an operating room to critical care and trauma room,” Joe Pino, senior vice president of medical education for Novant Health, said in the release. “Because we are a teaching hospital, we place a high value on practicing complex procedures and care in a controlled and safe environment.”

In Wilmington, Novant Health has more than 90 resident physicians based in programs for family medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, general surgery and psychiatry.

“Because the training space in the Simulation Lab replicates the hospital setting, the space will also be available for clinical team members,” the release stated, adding that physicians and nurses can use the lab to familiarize themselves with new equipment or run through new processes, for example.

“This space includes interactive equipment to provide our physicians and clinical trainees with realistic environments for simulation,” Pino said. “It is so important to develop these skills in a simulated environment as part of the training journey.”