SELLERSBURG — Members of Ivy Tech, Baptist Health and others gathered last week for the opening of the Baptist Health School of Health Sciences.

Ivy Tech Community College Sellersburg started the $2.5 million remodeling project in March to create the health sciences laboratory in the southwest wing of Pfau Hall at the school. On Aug. 23, there will be an open house for the new facilities.

Laboratories for life & physical sciences, microbiology and biology and a new entrance were included in the 7,000-square-foot renovations along with study areas, storage space and offices.

“These new spaces are allowing us to expand the number of students that we’re working with as well as bring them into facilities that are equivalent to what they’re seeing in the hospitals,” said Lacie Couzin, Ivy Tech’s dean of health sciences and dean of public affairs and social services.

With the renovations, there are now shared faculty opportunities and increased opportunities for students. For example, respiratory therapy students can start practicing with two semesters of classes and go to work while studying.

They are also able to expand the sizes of their allied health programs and take on more students and give them clinical experiences. Ivy Tech also has the potential to add new programs to the school with this expansion.

In these new classrooms and labs, students will have a mix of lectures and hands-on learning.

“While you may be in the lecture part of your class, it’s very easy for the instructor to grab a piece of equipment for demonstration,” Couzin said. “Instead of traveling from a classroom to a lab for a laboratory experience, it all takes place in one space.”

Ivy Tech will have a more hands-on learning experience for those in the allied health programs.

One new feature of the expansion is an ambulance simulation for their EMT program.

Those in the EMT program will be able to sit in the back of a mock ambulance that will shake and bounce just like in a real one while taking care of a mannequin.

“They don’t have to wait until they go to clinical to ride on the ambulance,” Couzin said. “They’re going to get that experience right here in class.”

Some programs that will benefit from this expansion are medical assisting, dental assisting, medical laboratory and more.

“We don’t have to worry about sharing spaces and shoehorning in certain classes,” Couzin said. “We can say ‘This is our space for medical laboratory and we can spend all of our time here training students for that.’”

By dedicating those spaces, it has allowed the school to look at how much capacity they have to train and increase the number of students in each classroom, Couzin added.