Major medical training center coming to Uptown Butte

Through friendship and a deep desire to leave a legacy to their hometown, two "Butte boys" are establishing a $35 million medical training center here to bolster hands-on health care in rural areas of the U.S. and beyond.

Pat Dudley and Ray Rogers say the Praxis Center for Innovative Learning in Uptown Butte will be the nation’s first independently owned, nonprofit medical simulation facility dedicated to rural health care.

It should bring 3,000 to 4,000 doctors, nurses, technicians, first-responders and others here each year to learn and hone skills using high-tech mannequins, imaging simulators and virtual-reality settings and scenarios.

It will create about 70 new jobs, 50 full-time, at a sprawling, four-story complex at Park and Arizona streets. One-third of it will resemble a rural hospital inside and out, with an emergency room, intensive care unit and even a helipad.

MIKE SMITH [email protected]

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