Faculty Development Symposium

15 April 2013

In January 2013, the Society for Simulation in Healthcare held their annual conference in Orlando. A two-day symposium on faculty development preceded the main conference of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare – Generation Simulation: Today’s Learners, Tomorrow’s Leaders. The goal of the symposium was to provide professional development opportunities in topics central to healthcare simulation. Four topics ran through the symposium:

1. Identifying and managing differences between learners in education-oriented simulations
2. Identifying and managing learners demonstrating gaps in observed and expected performance in simulations
3. Designing high quality educational simulations to optimize learner experiences
4. Identify unique features of simulations to achieve patient safety

Over 250 delegates attended the symposium where leaders in healthcare simulation and related fields offered presentations and workshops. These included: Anders Ericsson who described the role of deliberate practice for superior performance; Ian Curran who discussed role of customizing educational experiences to meet learners’ needs; Ryan Brydges discussed the directed self-regulated learning; Carol Durham highlight patient safety as the epicenter of teaching and learning; and Adam Cheng introduced the contribution of scripted debriefing to faculty development.

In addition to the symposium, there was a parallel stream called the State of the Art (SOTA). The SOTA participants comprised teams of invited experts in the four topics who were charged with developing papers. The papers are intended to form part of a valuable resource for simulation educators. While participants were selected for their expertise, groups were formed that reflected national and disciplinary variation. Participants of the symposium were also able to contribute to the SOTA through focus groups and electronic prompts between sessions in which they shared their views and reflections providing diverse contextual information for the SOTA authors. Finally, an overarching SOTA group – Jenny Rudolph (US), Michaela Kolbe (Switzerland), Peter Dieckmann (Denmark) and Debra Nestel (Australia) used the theoretical lens of community of practice to examine faculty development activities.

The SOTA papers should be available in late 2013. Members of the SOTA groups are:

1. Differences between learners – Peter Dieckmann, Sigrun Anna Qvindesland, Sissel Husebø, Liat Pessach Gelblum, Margaret Bearman, Demian Szyld, Ian Curran
2. Learner gaps – Walter Eppich, Ryan Brydges, Bryn Baxendale, Catherine Morse, Abeer Arab, Nikki Maran, Jane Runnacles, Adam Cheng
3. Optimizing learning – Pamela Andreatta, Charlotte Ringstedt, Simon Edgar, Suzie Kardong Edgren, Catherine Allan, Doris Oestergaard
4. Patient safety – Sonal Arora, Marcus Rall, Carol Durham Fowler, Alexander Harris, Stephen Sollid, Patrik Nyström, Guillermo Ortiz, Debra Nestel