Wake Tech’s mock hospital aims to show students what it’s like to work in a real one
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- Wake Tech will open a 100,000-square-foot simulation hospital in late 2027.
- Facility will train students from multiple health fields in real-world scenarios.
- $121 million bond funds construction; project unites Wake Tech, WakeMed, county.
In the future, when health sciences students graduate from Wake Tech Community College and start their first job in a hospital, it should all feel familiar.
That’s the goal of the new “simulation hospital,” a 100,000-square-foot building now under construction on Wake Tech’s Perry Health Sciences Campus in Raleigh.
When it opens in late 2027, the mock hospital will be a place where students from different health fields can role play various scenarios in a realistic setting, says Nicole Reaves, Wake Tech’s executive vice president and chief programs officer. It will include an emergency room, an operating room, an imaging center and a nurses station.
“The simulation hospital will be an immersive, state-of-the-art facility that looks and feels like a real hospital,” Reaves said at a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday. “From the lobby where the patients will check in, to the diagnostic labs, to the patient rooms, this facility will prepare students in a true interdisciplinary setting, learning not only skills in their respective fields but also how to collaborate across the specialties like they will have to do in the real world.”
The simulation hospital will be short walk from WakeMed’s main complex off New Bern Avenue and is a joint project of the health system, Wake Tech and Wake County. The building and an adjacent parking deck are being built on land owned by the county and WakeMed and is being financed with $121 million from the Workforce Forward bond referendum, an effort to generate money for Wake Tech expansion that county voters overwhelmingly approved in 2022.
Simulated hospitals are popping up around the country to help train people for health care fields that are chronically short of workers. Among them is Catawba Valley Community College’s ValleySim Hospital in Hickory, which dates back to 2011.
But the Perry Family Simulation Hospital at Wake Tech, named for longtime college supporters Jim and Becky Perry, will be among the largest and most comprehensive in the country, said college president Scott Ralls. It will help anchor what WakeMed, Wake Tech and the county are calling a “health education district,” Ralls said.
The simulated hospital reflects the growing complexity of health care and the specialized jobs that hospitals now need to fill, said Donald Gintzig, WakeMed’s president and CEO. There’s a lot more to health care than just nurses and doctors, Gintzig said.
“When you look at the way health care has evolved, to surgical techs and respiratory therapy techs and imaging technology and laboratory technology and just so many new opportunities,” he said. “In as little as a year, you can learn a skill that will pay you six figures, not to mention provide you with purpose and growth and the ability to make a difference in a lot of people’s lives.”
More than 3,500 students attend class at Wake Tech’s Perry Health Sciences Campus each year. Another 3,000 are enrolled in general education and science classes, hoping to earn a spot in one of the college’s health programs.
This story was originally published September 16, 2025 at 4:24 PM with the headline "Wake Tech’s mock hospital aims to show students what it’s like to work in a real one."
