This 11,850 s.f. project is the first of its kind in Northern California, bringing a cutting-edge surgical training center to doctors and nurses both within and outside of the Dignity Health system. It provides a highly realistic learning environment for medical professionals to hone their skills using high fidelity human patient simulators, which provide biologically accurate real-time feedback to practitioners. The facility includes a training OR room with observation booth, obstetrics delivery room, scrub station, pre-op, and PACU bays, and a conference suite.

Constructed on the second floor of an existing office building, the Boulder Associates team was tasked with finding ways to structurally reinforce the building in order to accommodate thousands of pounds of equipment, as well as prepare for the possible addition of robotic surgery equipment in the future. Thousand-pound OR tables necessitated additional floor joists and a latticework of structural members, while ceiling-mounted clinical booms with lights and monitors required the roof to be reinforced with additional joists.

While most functional elements of a typical surgical facility are simulated in this space, headwalls, med gases, and code blue buttons are routed to a control room, where an operator is able to create responses in the patient simulator based on the practitioner’s actions. In this way, the training environment is able to emulate real-life scenarios and better prepare medical professionals for challenging situations they may encounter in their work.