Clinical and Professional Skills Simulation Lab CliPS Lab

Plenary Session on the 26th June:

Navigation the sea of simulated patient research. Elaine Meyer, PhD, RN

The first paper describing SP methodology was published by Howard Barrows in 1964. Fast forward 50+ years to a vast and complicated collection of published papers that describe the application of human simulation in healthcare and beyond. This presentation focused on research involving SPs in teaching or assessment activities in the healthcare professions. It was discussed trends in research over time and look at how research with SPs mirrors current issues in healthcare. It was began to discuss some ideas for future directions in research involving SPs.

 

Plenary session on 27th June

On Being Present, Not Perfect: Insight and Implication for Simulation Educator. Eleine Meyer, PhD, RN

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This session drew on the presenter’s TEDx Talk, On Being Present, Not Perfect, to highlight the importance of simulation and the vital role of simulation educators during communication and relational learning paradigms. Simulated patients are in a unique position to provide authentic feedback from the first person perspective, which is especially relevant when the focus of teaching is on interpersonal skills and challenging healthcare conversations. Participants were introduced to the pedagogy of the Program to Enhance Communication and Relational Skills (PERCS) workshops, including its emphasis on the everyday ethics of clinical practice and the role of improvisational simulated patients as ethical understudies for patients and their families. ... Emphasis was placed on the value of authenticity and realism during simulated healthcare conversations and debriefing, thus translating the principle of being present, not perfect beyond applicability in actual clinical practice, but also to simulated patients and simulation educators.

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The 27th June we chose the following W and PD:

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Alliance Uses SP to improve Patient Safety Outcome

Sitting in symposiums watching presentation after presentation can be exhausting both physically and mentally. Institution facilitators hosted a Patient Safety symposium using an innovative method for incorporating the use of standardized patients and simulation. The non-traditional method was implemented to improve symposium outcomes.

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Invisible empathy? How unconscious bias may impact objective assessment of interpersonal skills

Unconscious bias is universal and has been shown to have both positive and negative value in human interaction. This session was focused on SP unconscious cultural bias, which may inhibit the objective assessment of interpersonal skills. Addressing bias with SPs promotes their personal and professional development, while ensuring fair assessment of learners' complex communication skills. Two different institutions presented SP procedures currently in use to develop cultural humility. These are learning tools for SP Educators to use in training or SP pre-screening interviews and include group discussion and self-reflective surveys.

Objectives:

Reflect on their own biases and how they may or may not affect their training

Explore the use of tools to address bias

Discuss how these tools can be further developed to address unconscious bias”

 

Working with volunteers SPs.

Volunteer SPs are increasingly working as simulated participants (SPs). However there is wide variation about what is meant by a “volunteer SP” and many terms are used to describe them. Although there are both benefits and challenges to working with volunteer SPs, there is no agreement or strong evidence about what kind of volunteer SP is most effective or if volunteer SPs are more or less effective than paid SPs. Some programs employ a hybrid approach in which some SPs are paid and some are volunteers. The intention of this panel session is to examine and share experiences of working with volunteer SPs.”

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Helping your client to identify and select the most appropriate assessment for projects

Many components are considered when developing a standardized patient project, a primary one being whether to include an assessment and the form the assessment should take. For the purposes of this workshop, when we refer to assessments, we specifically mean post-encounter checklists.

Checklists must be useful, practical, and align with project objectives.

They should be educationally relevant and accurately measure what they are designed for. An assessment may have been selected because it had been used previously in another project without regard for its suitability for the task at hand. Subsequently, it may not be the ideal measurement of learning performance. We are proposing that SP educators possess a variety of options that may be presented when planning an event. These options would be learner-and customer-centred and meet the project objectives.

 

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Plenary session on 28th June

The science of simulation based training (SBT): seven observations.

The plenary provided seven robust observations on when simulation-based training works best for enhancing teamwork. These are based on the science of learning, teamwork and training plus drawing on 30 years of experience of designing, developing and evaluation SBT systems. A number of evidence-based best practices was outlined and discuss.”

 

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The 28th June we chose the following W and PD:

 

SPs beyond Healthcare

The benefits of SPs in medical education and assessment have been well-established. SP educators are in a unique position to broaden this methodology to other professions. Expanding the scope of SPs offers the dual benefit of providing non-medical trainees a simulated experience that is authentic, measurable and reproducible, and empowering SP educators to diversify their expertise, generate revenue for their institutions and elevate the profession.”

 

Master Class – Professionalizing and empowering your SPs as educators

By increasing staff’s expectations with clearly defined behaviours regarding professionalism, responsibilities and performance level, the SP program culture at your school can reframe how SPs, as well as students and faculty, identify the SP’s role in and contributions to the medical education curriculum. This can be done in multiple ways, beginning with the on boarding of new SPs, through clearly defined roles and expectations of SPs as educational professionals in trainings and training materials, program management decisions, and described professional behaviour.”

 

Research in action! Collaborating with participants for community-oriented scholarship

At ASPE we share and learn with others to solve problems. This is called Participatory Action Research and is a form of qualitative research!

Participatory Action Research (PAR) is characterized by a collaboration of all stakeholders not only in project implementation but also in all phases including inception and design. Researchers and co-participants gain knowledge through experience with the end goal being practical, transformational, social change that benefits participants and communities. Specific attributes of PAR vary from traditional research paradigms to include: shared ownership by scholars and participants of research projects, community-based analyses of social issues/problems, and a proclivity for community action.”

 

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The 29th was overall SS (Snapshot): we chose the follow SS

 

Lights, camera, psychiatry! Facilitating active learning of the psychiatric evaluation through simulation.

Simulation may be effectively used to teach learners the nuances of psychiatric assessment utilizing an active learning framework.

A majority of medical students do not choose a career in Psychiatry, yet are required to interact with patients with mental health problems as physicians. Proficiency in the application of theoretical principles of psychiatric evaluation is imperative for effective patient care. This presentation highlighted a program, which exposes medical students to the complexities of psychiatric evaluation through simulation, requiring application of theoretical knowledge, as part of a redesigned curriculum exclusively utilizing active learning techniques. This, well received, intervention facilitates early introduction of complex concepts such as diagnostic clarification, risk assessment, decision-making capacity, verbal de-escalation, management of countertransference.”

 

Let’s do it again and again – Simulating a long term therapeutic alliance.

Imagine the opportunity to establish a working therapeutic relationship in the safety of longitudinal simulation. Clinical Psychology Graduate students attempt to establish this relationship with standardized patients over two semesters

This is a chance to develop a relationship and trust that can only be established over time after defining the parameters during the orientation phase. Students then gather information, overcome resistant behaviours and promote skills to facilitate change during the working phase. Finally, learners practice the termination phase which is an integral part of the therapeutic alliance. Students see the same patient for eight 45 minute encounters immediately followed by debriefing with the faculty and teaching assistants.

Developing a therapeutic alliance with a patient goes through overlapping phases which include orientation, working and termination phases.

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Operations resources  - Tools and processes to ensure quality.

There must be very high levels of system organization to ensure quality educational experiences.

Our Simulation Center has worked to create several tools and processes to ensure quality educational experiences. The implementation of a Sim Session Survey to collect all data for simulation requests, the creation of a Sim Activity Punch List to determine accurate setting and systems operations, the development of policies regarding dry run procedures and the use of Team Huddles and post session debriefs all contribute to quality simulation activities.”

 

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The business of simulation SPs and devices

Simulation activities have exploded. The challenge of maintaining services for core programs and meeting requests from outside clientele has stimulated the development of processes and procedures while simultaneously working with leadership to design a service-oriented arm of the Center. Since our Center offers all aspects of “simulation” there are several business development approaches necessary to address the variances in SPs, Devices and hybrids.”

 

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