The Health Education and Training Institute's (HETI) Rural Mobile Simulation Centre (MSC) contained a replicated emergency room and hospital ward featuring computerised mannequins as the patients.

While the mannequins were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, their true value lay in their ability to provide a safe environment in which doctors, nurses and allied health staff could practise life-saving skills, according to HETI manager Tod Adams.

She said the mannequins varied in age, sex and function in order to provide a wide variety of cardiac, respiratory, obstetric and paediatric care scenarios.

Chloe, for instance, was a 'sim mum' who was capable of delivering a 'sim baby'.

"A member of staff acts as a puppeteer and the medical personnel catches the baby as it comes out," Ms Adams said.

"And we can make the baby come out in a way that simulates a breech birth."

George, a state-of-the-art, Bluetooth-capable mannequin, was capable of being intubated, cannulated and he had a heart rhythm.

"He has holes in his head and can sweat, cry and froth at the mouth," Ms Adams said.

"A blue light in his mouth can make his lips appear blue, we can use a defibrillator on him and we can put a kit on him to make him bleed.

"There is a copper wire in his arm that acknowledges actions the staff perform on him when they give him air or injections."

The newest addition to the team was Simon, a simulated six-year-old boy.

"We can talk into a microphone and what we say will come out of Simon's mouth so he can talk with the medical staff," Ms Adams said.

The babies, too, could cry and grunt to enhance the interactive experience.

Extras such as tattoo sleeves, stick-on wounds with glass embedded in them, puffy eye overlays and litres of fake blood could be used with the mannequins to make for realistic emergency department presentations.

Mannequins' clothes could also be dampened to simulate drowning incidents and create potential electrical hazards the participants needed to take into account when they responded to emergencies.

The training truck was particularly useful because "you don't see a stab wound or shooting injury or cardiac arrest every day", Ms Adams said.

She said cameras were set up in the replicated emergency room so an operator could "run the show from outside" and help control the mannequins' response to the actions of medical staff.

Reflecting on their experience in the scenarios was a vital part of learning for health professionals, according to Ms Adams.

"For every 10 minutes in the simulated session there is double that in a debrief," she said.

"They work out what they did and didn't do well and that reflection brings about behaviour change when they are presented with that scenario in the future.

"It can be quite an emotional experience when a patient does or does not make it".