Why This Teaching Hospital Only Has Fake Patients

University hospitals are often premier institutions for medical training. But a new school on the West Side of Chicago is promising advances in health-care education without students ever collecting a vial of blood or scrubbing in for surgery. It’s a community college, and its array of courses are supported by a suite of simulative technologies.

Malcolm X College (part of the City Colleges of Chicago system) was built to meet the projected need for 84,000 healthcare jobs in Chicago in the next decade. In a hospital, only one out of 10 staffers is a doctor, so Malcolm X offers degrees in radiography, nursing, phlebotomy, respiratory therapy, dental hygiene, and more. This all happens in a high-tech environment its architects at CannonDesign (working with the firm Moody Nolan) say is unmatched in community colleges.