Nursing students at AdventHealth University in Orlando are now training on manikins that blink, breathe and talk back, part of a new simulation center the school says is meant to help fill Florida's growing need for nurses. The center gives students a place to practice high-stakes scenarios like stroke, heart attack and childbirth before they ever set foot in a real hospital room.
The simulation center sits on the second floor of the Graduate Building on the university's Orlando campus, according to ahu.edu. It includes four dedicated rooms, two built around pediatric care and two equipped with adult simulators, each fitted with functioning headwalls for suction, oxygen and air so the setting feels like a real clinical unit. As WFTV reports, the space is primarily used for undergraduate nursing education but also serves physician assistant and nurse practitioner students.
Manikins That Blink, Breathe and Respond
Some of the manikins inside the center run on artificial intelligence, learning and responding as students interact with them, according to the station's report. High-tech models can blink, breathe and even talk back, giving trainees a chance to react to unfolding medical emergencies in real time. The technology lets students practice without the pressure of treating an actual patient, per the same account.
Julia Martins, a student in the ASN nursing program at AdventHealth University, told WFTV the simulation technology gives her room to fail safely before she ever reaches a hospital floor. “I really like the fact that I can mess up here instead of messing up in the hospital, because that’s better,” Martins said, according to the outlet.
Obstetrics and Anesthesia Training Built In
Beyond the four main simulation rooms, the campus's obstetrics setup lets students apply their coursework across prenatal, labor and delivery, postpartum and newborn scenarios, per ahu.edu. A separate nurse-anesthesia lab uses human patient simulators built to mimic human-like physiology, including lung mechanics, gas exchange and pharmacological response, the university's facilities page notes. The school's broader Nursing Learning Center adds three large labs that can hold up to 60 students at once, along with 19 patient-care beds and two cribs.
The simulation center is part of a larger expansion that began in June 2024, according to a university announcement on ahu.edu. That project also added two immersive-learning lecture halls, dedicated operating room and birthing suites, and a spacious nursing skills lab stocked with additional manikins described as having life-like features and real-world medical issues built in. The university said construction was expected to wrap by December 2025. Separately, AdventHealth University's alumni site notes the simulation center was built on the site of the former AdventHealth Center for Behavioral Health.
A Response to Florida's Nursing Shortage
University President C. Josef Ghosn said the new building was a direct response to Florida's projected nursing need, according to WFTV's reporting, which cited a shortage estimate of 60,000 additional nurses needed statewide by 2030. Ghosn also said the university registered more than 2,300 students in 2026, including roughly 900 nursing students. He described the expansion as a way to give students more tools and opportunities to become proficient in whole-person care, a goal echoed in the university's own announcement.
Interim nursing dean Arlene Johnson said the new spaces are designed to support low-, mid- and high-fidelity simulation for all students, with a particular focus on nursing, according to the university's announcement. AdventHealth University has said its virtual- and augmented-reality tools allow students to practice safely, build confidence and improve their skills before working with real patients.
Tuition, Financial Aid and Workforce Pipeline
Ghosn told WFTV that tuition at AdventHealth University ranges from $20,000 to $100,000, which he said remains lower than costs at the University of Tampa and the University of Miami. The university trains both incoming students and current AdventHealth employees looking to advance their careers within the health system, and Ghosn said AdventHealth sponsors system employees who want to further their education. The school also offers financial aid, per WFTV's reporting.
The expansion fits into a broader enrollment push at the university, which offers 24 health-care degrees ranging from associate to doctoral level along with dozens of workforce-development certificates, according to ahu.edu. AdventHealth has separately said it is investing in training physicians, nurses and other clinical team members to meet Central Florida's growing health-care needs, with enrollment once projected to reach 2,000 students and eventually 3,000 by 2030, according to adventhealth.com. The university's construction work, as the Orlando Business Journal reported, comes as the school works toward a separate goal of quintupling total enrollment by 2035.
