Simulation training is a key component of the residency program at Weill Cornell Anesthesiology. In April, the department welcomed educators from Boston's Center for Medical Simulation (CMS) for a four-day program designed to train faculty in creating and utilizing high-quality simulation as a teaching tool.
Led by CMS senior directors Drs. Jenny Rudolph and Dan Raemer, the course focused on helping simulation instructors:
- build a challenging and safe learning environment
- utilize effective debriefing techniques and avoid ineffective ones, and
- prepare, build, conduct and debrief high-fidelity simulation scenarios.
A dramatic simulation kicked off the program in the Skills Acquisition & Innovation Lab (SAIL). SAIL is a teaching and research laboratory that utilizes state-of-the-art simulation technology to train physicians, nurses, residents, fellows and medical students. It is administered jointly by the Departments of Anesthesiology, Surgery and Radiology at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
Participants entered the lab to find two patients, represented by SAIL’s lifelike mannequins, critically wounded. As the team began to work, they were presented with a new challenge: an explosion that brought more injuries and further complicated efforts to resuscitate the patients.
Dr. Lori Rubin, associate professor of clinical anesthesiology, explains that the value of the high-stress simulation lies in the reflection that follows.
“It’s a way of practicing stressful events and then going through the process of debriefing and understanding what the learner was doing at that time, and what they were thinking,” she said. The exercise also allows people “to practice skills like leadership, closing communication loops, teamwork, all kinds of things that you can’t necessarily read a book and learn.”
Dr. Rubin and Dr. Kevin Ching, assistant professor of pediatrics, spearheaded the program at Weill Cornell Medicine.
Twenty-two doctors and nurses participated from across the institution, including attendings from the Department of Anesthesiology Drs. Meghann Fitzgerald, Jeremy Pick and Jacques Scharoun, and CRNAs Keith Denison and Giovanna Scheidler. Other participants included surgeons Drs. Shaun Steigman and Benjamin Golas; Dr. Shane Wasden from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology; and nurses Sara Pasciolla and Megan Higgins. Faculty from emergency medicine, pediatrics and critical care also attended.
For Dr. Rubin, the instructor training program is just the beginning. She looks forward to collaborations across departments as participants create powerful simulation trainings.
RELATED INFORMATION