“See, she can have seizures,” said John Smilie, a territory sales manager for Gaumard Scientific. “She screams, too.”

Gaumard was one of nine vendors at Wednesday afternoon’s SimExpo. The expo featured life-sized, computerized mannequins and simulated body parts designed to teach medical procedures.

The technologies shown Wednesday are mostly for medical schools and undergraduate programs, said Karen Moore, a customer service manager for Limbs & Things.

Limbs & Things displayed several reproductive health models.

“The student can lay on the table and actually hold the model between their legs,” Moore said. “It helps with the embarrassment factor.”

The first-time event was organized by the MSU Learning and Assessment Center.

“We did a small scale SimFair in November where we showcased what we do in Fee Hall,” center interim director R. Taylor Scott said.

Scott said he hopes to hold the event annually or every two years.

The center opened in 2006 and serves as a training site for the colleges of Human Medicine, Nursing, Osteopathic Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. The facility has two computerized Laerdal SimMan models, said Mike Miller, an information training specialist at the center.

Miller said medical classes and local hospital staffs use the SimMan simulations.

“You can generate different scenarios and (the SimMan) will react to what the student is doing,” he said. “If they give him some kind of drug, we can manipulate him so he will react the same way a regular patient would.”

The technology, support costs and training for one human model can cost up to $300,000.

Simulators make medical training more comfortable, Moore said.

“In the past, instead of using simulation, you practiced on cadavers or real people,” she said. “The doctor would come in with a team of medical students behind him and say, ‘OK, this is how you do it. Now your turn.’

“I would hate to be that patient.”