{"id":134818,"date":"2025-06-02T11:43:55","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T15:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/?post_type=bu-article&p=134818"},"modified":"2025-09-12T13:14:44","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T17:14:44","slug":"ribbon-cutting-officially-opens-new-rod-hochman-family-clinical-skills-simulation-center","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/news-events\/articles\/2025\/ribbon-cutting-officially-opens-new-rod-hochman-family-clinical-skills-simulation-center\/","title":{"rendered":"Ribbon Cutting Officially Opens New Rod Hochman Family Clinical Skills & Simulation Center"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
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Cutting the ribbon and officially opening the Rod Hochman Family Clinical Skills & Simulation Center are (l-r) Priya Garg, MD, associate dean for medical education; BU President Melissa Gilliam, MD, MPH; donors Nancy and Rod Hochman Rod Hochman, MD, and Medical School Dean and BUMC Provost Karen Antman, MD.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRibbon Cutting Officially Opens New Rod Hochman Family Clinical Skills & Simulation Center\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

New technology and design prepare students for the realities of patient diagnoses and care<\/em><\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n
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June 2, 2025<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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The hallways of the new Rod Hochman Family Clinical Skills & Simulation Center were freshly painted, with bright overhead lighting reflecting off polished floors, and new equipment and advanced technology awaiting students in every room. But medical student Madison Ellin, MD\u201925, was more impressed that the new facility looked like any other hospital or clinic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a real gift, to be able to give the students what they need. To see this happen, is so near and dear to my heart.<\/p>Rod Hochman, MD (CAS\u201979, CAMED\u201979)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re going into your third year, to urgent care or outpatient settings, this hallway reflects what it feels like to be in a clinic and you really get that feeling that you can do it,\u201d said Ellin, who is headed to a pediatric residency at Columbia University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new skills and simulation center will open this summer. Dean\u2019s Advisory Board (DAB) member Rod Hochman, MD (CAS\u201979, CAMED\u201979), and his wife Nancy Hochman (Sargent\u201977,\u201983), donated $10 million to build and operate the larger, more technologically advanced center dedicated to preparing MD, physician assistant, mental health and genetic counseling students for the realities of patient diagnosis and care using a team-based approach. Hochman has had a long career serving in senior executive healthcare positions including 18 years as president and chief executive officer of the Providence healthcare system. Nancy Hochman has been a physical therapist for 30 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rod and Nancy Hochman\u2019s daughter Lindsey and their grandson are shown a clinical simulator. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a real gift, to be able to give the students what they need. To see this happen, is so near and dear to my heart,\u201d said Rod Hochman, speaking at the May 8 ribbon cutting. He credited Karen Antman<\/a>, MD, dean of the medical school and medical campus provost for her vision and persuasiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen the dean asked me what I thought about a (new) clinical skills and simulation center\u2026I said \u2018Okay, you got it,\u2019\u201d said Hochman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Practicing in an environment like this, that feels like the real thing, gives you that sense of competence and confidence you need. Then, when you go onto the real wards, you feel like you\u2019re just doing it all over again. It\u2019s familiar.<\/p>Neil Singh Bedi<\/a>, MD\u201926<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think one of the most important things to us is that we create safety in the transition of students from a classroom to the clinical environment. We do this by providing a space where they can practice and understand the real-world issues that come up when they\u2019re in the clinical environment,\u201d said Associate Dean of Medical Education Priya Garg<\/a>, MD. The new center was part of the school\u2019s reimagining of how to best train medical students, embodied in the recent curriculum redesign, to integrate learning theory and make learning more active.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt made natural sense to have more simulation and standardized patient experiences,\u201d said Garg. \u201cOur future patients, when they see our graduates, need to know that our doctors were well-trained in the skills that we value the most, which are developing rapport with our patients, communicating in a way that they feel that they are heard and having the diagnostic and clinical reasoning skills that make them excellent diagnosticians.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garg said the school had been talking with Hochman for years about clinical care education, tapping his experience as a CEO. The new center was a natural extension of that conversation, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The old simulation center, located in the basement of the L-building, was crowded, occasionally experienced flooding, had older equipment and an inefficient design. The new center is three times larger, and its rooms are grouped around teaching clinical skills, including the physical examination, hospital care and skills instruction, with 13 clinical skills classrooms, 13 examination rooms for standardized patient (trained actors who grade the students) experiences and four simulated emergency\/hospital rooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New and upgraded technology includes ultrasound, intercoms and all the equipment found in a standard examination room. A new web-based instructional system allows faculty to observe students remotely with two cameras in each room providing full room coverage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The four hospital rooms mimic a typical inpatient or emergency room and feature hospital beds, high-fidelity manikins (life-like patient simulators used in medical training), wall screens showing the simulated patient vital signs and x-rays, and handheld ultrasound machines.  In an adjacent room behind one-way mirrors, faculty answer questions in the voice of the high-fidelity patient as students interview the manikin while they observe the students so they can facilitate a debrief following the simulation session. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A baby\u2019s cry interrupted Molly Cohen-Osher<\/a>\u2019s presentation to DAB members on the May 8 tour of the new facility. Cohen-Osher, MD, MMedEd, the assistant dean of medical education for curriculum and instructional design as well as the family medicine director of medical student education, instinctively went to the source of the crying, a realistic manikin of a baby on a hospital bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The baby was hooked up to a monitor displaying its vital signs. The manikin could be programmed to display symptoms and to respond to treatment. It could run a fever and sweat and could be intubated, have seizures, have a needle decompression, tracheotomy, chest tubes, take meds and fluids. The baby\u2019s internal electronics analyze student hand placement, compression and air flow during CPR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students on hand for the DAB tour praised the design and the technology of the new facility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neil Singh Bedi<\/a>, MD\u201926, recalled the \u201cdeer in the headlights\u201d feeling of seeing his first real patient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPracticing in an environment like this, that feels like the real thing, gives you that sense of competence and confidence you need,\u201d said Bedi. \u201cThen, when you go onto the real wards, you feel like you\u2019re just doing it all over again. It\u2019s familiar.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking at the ribbon cutting, Boston University President Melissa Gilliam, MD, MPH, said the new center reflected both the need to be technologically up to date as well as the importance of giving students the best skills training possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we do that at this institution, then we can also attract the best students,\u201d said Gilliam, who also thanked the Hochmans for their generosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYour generosity is helping us stay at the forefront of medicine. The students are our future\u2026What we do here, combining an incredible mission with the best possible training will really change the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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