Behind the Simulation Madness — Meet Ben Oliver, CUAA’s Chief Simulation Specialist.
When students step into the Concordia University Ann Arbor Simulation Center, they immediately feel the energy of a real clinical environment. The monitors beep. The call lights flash. The code blue alarms sound exactly like they do in a hospital. Mannequins breathe, talk, decline, recover — and sometimes projectile vomit.
What students may not see, at least at first, is the person who makes all of that possible.
Behind the curtain, in a control room filled with computers, headsets, pumps, cameras and life-supporting machinery, stands Ben Oliver, CUAA’s director of technology and simulation. Part engineer, part paramedic, part educator and part magician, Oliver is the quiet force behind one of the most immersive simulation experiences in the region.
To understand the Simulation Center, you have to understand the man who powers it.
A career forged in emergency care
Oliver’s path to CUAA’s Simulation Center began nearly three decades ago in emergency medical services.
He has served as a paramedic for more than 28 years, bringing life-saving care to chaotic, unpredictable scenes where every second matters. His teaching background extends across the full spectrum of emergency care, including medical first responder, EMT, paramedic and nursing continuing education.
The turning point came when Oliver began working with medical flight crews and later training armed services personnel at Fort Custer and other military sites. As simulation became more advanced, one problem kept emerging:
The equipment broke — and almost no one knew how to fix it.
“When I started, there were only about 280 people in the world trained to work on these systems,” Oliver says. “Now it’s around 1,200. But it’s still a specialized field.”
So he learned: computers, pneumatics, networking, mechanics and the growing science of high-fidelity simulation. He became the person everyone called when a mannequin needed resuscitation — of the technical kind.
Today, that expertise is the backbone of CUAA’s Simulation Center.
A hospital without the risk
The philosophy behind CUAA’s simulation program is simple: Let students make mistakes before they ever touch a real patient.
“If they hurt the mannequin, I can fix it,” Oliver says. “But if they hurt a real patient, there’s no undo button.”
In CUAA’s labs, students practice the realities of patient care in a controlled, supportive environment. They respond to deteriorating vitals. They manage emergencies. They perform CPR under sensory overload — including a mannequin capable of expelling five gallons of realistic “vomit” during cardiac arrest training.
It’s messy, stressful and unforgettable — by design.
Students learn how to:
• communicate clearly under pressure
• work through panic
• perform when everything feels chaotic
• reflect on errors without shame
That intentional combination of challenge and support makes simulation education so powerful. As one faculty member put it: “It’s the definition of education. We put them into the worst-case scenario while giving them the best possible environment to learn from it.”
Training that matches the real world
CUAA’s Simulation Center doesn’t rely on approximations. It uses the same medical technology found in major partner systems such as:
• University of Michigan Health
• Trinity Health Ann Arbor Hospital
• ProMedica
The Simulation Center includes a full Pyxis medication dispensing system, matching pumps and monitors, realistic call-light and code blue systems, and communicating phones and provider workflows. It even has a courtroom for documentation and legal-scenario debriefings.
When students walk into their clinical placements, they’re already familiar with the tools, alarms, equipment and expectations.
There’s no learning curve — because Oliver’s team eliminated it.
The courtroom nobody forgets
One of the most innovative aspects of CUAA’s program happens after the clinical scenario ends. Students complete electronic charting — and then they’re subpoenaed in class by campus security.
Yes, really.
They have one week to prepare. They’re taken to a local attorney’s office or CUAA’s mock courtroom. They face real lawyers. They are questioned about every detail of their documentation.
Some students cry. Some are shocked. But all of them leave changed.
They learn that:
• charting cannot be retroactively fixed
• accuracy matters more than perfection
• everything written becomes part of the legal record
Few nursing or physician assistant programs in the country offer a learning experience like this.
Five hundred scenarios. Infinite learning.
Oliver oversees more than 500 preprogrammed simulation scenarios, from everyday clinical care to once-in-a-lifetime emergencies. Nursing students will eventually experience nearly all of them.
Every scenario is recorded, tracked, debriefed, evaluated and archived. The mannequins capture everything — from where students touched them to how quickly medications were delivered to every mistake made under pressure.
This isn’t practice. It’s preparation.
The wizard behind the curtain
Touring the Simulation Center feels like stepping onto a movie set — lights, sounds, monitors and controlled chaos unfolding all around. But none of it would run without Ben Oliver.
He is, as one observer put it, “the Wizard of Oz of simulation — pulling the levers, controlling the scene and creating the magic behind the curtain.”
He laughs at the description, but he doesn’t deny it.
“I love this work,” he says. “And I love seeing what students learn from it.”
Whether he’s programming a code scenario, repairing a mannequin after a rough session or adding a bit of “medical magic” to keep students on their toes, Oliver’s fingerprints are on every part of the learning experience.
His work ensures that CUAA students enter their professions confident, prepared and ready for the realities of health care.
And that is the true magic behind the simulation madness.
Want in?
CUAA will continue to offer degrees in 2025-26 and beyond. Pursue a degree in healthcare at our North Building with its newly remodeled features and state-of-the-art simulation equipment, or earn a bachelor’s or master’s degree in education through one of our well-established online programs. The CUAA campus continues to offer a route to a Lutheran Teacher Diploma to help equip Lutheran K-12 schools nationwide with qualified workers. In the near future, Concordia will look to reintroduce additional church work training opportunities in Ann Arbor by building a new vision and model for the undergraduate degree programs here.
Click here to view a full list of the programs Concordia will retain in Ann Arbor. Click below to schedule a visit with an Admissions team member.