We’ve added two IMS “Simulation as a Teaching Tool” Simulation Instructor Workshops in 2012.  The first workshop will be held at the Medical Simulation Center at Loma Linda University  in Loma Linda, California from February 6-9, 2012.  A few months later the CMS Faculty will head to New York City where they’ll teach the course at the Institute for Medical Simulation and Learning (IMSAL) at the Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx.

Taught by CMS’ Harvard faculty, the Simulation as a Teaching Tool Workshop is a 4-day intensive immersion in healthcare simulation that is specifically designed for those educators seeking to develop high quality simulation programs. It covers high level elements and concepts involved in using simulation as a teaching tool.

Drawing on the disciplines of aviation, healthcare, psychology, experiential learning, and organizational behavior, participants learn how to teach clinical, behavioral, and cognitive skills through simulation. Participants explore simulator based teaching methods applicable across the healthcare education spectrum, including undergraduate and graduate medical, nursing and allied health domains.

The daily formats vary and include simulation scenarios, lectures, small and large group discussions, and practical exercises with feedback. Ample opportunities are provided for networking and sharing experiences. Attendees join a growing community of Institute graduates who are positioned as leaders in the field.

Tuition for this workshop is $4,000

To learn more about the workshop, or to apply, visit the Center for Medical Simulation (CMS) website’s IMS webpage at
http://www.harvardmedsim.org/ims/html. You can also email CMS at info@harvardmedsim.org , or call Gary Rossi, CMS’ COO at 617.768.8267

IMS LOMA LINDA FLYER 
IMS IMSAL NY FLYER

Last Thursday CMS had the honor of hosting Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger”.  Captain Sullenberger is the pilot who safely landed US Airways flight 1549 in the Hudson River in January, 2009 saving everyone on board after his aircraft hit a flock of birds knocking out both engines after takeoff. Captain Sullenberger, who retired from US Airways after thirty years of services in March, 2010, is a recognized expert on airline safety.  He’s  served as an instructor and as the Air Line Pilots Association Safety Chairman where his safety work led to the development of the Federal Aviation Administration Advisory Circular. Captain Sullenberger was instrumental in developing and implementing the Crew Resource Management course that is used by US Airways.  Since 2007 he has run his own consulting firm, Safety Reliability Methods (SRM), Inc. which provides expert solutions to complex problems involving safety, high performance, and high reliability in the aviation industry. And, this past May he became the Aviaition and Safety Expert for CBS News. Captain Sullenberger is  interested in learning more about what can be done to improve safety in the healthcare sector and visited CMS  to see the cutting work we’re doing using simulation to help improve the quality and safety of care delivered to patients.

Congratulations to our friends Demian Szyld and Grace Ng on the opening of the New York Simulation Center for Health Sciences.  The 20.8 million dollar training center, located at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, is a collaboration between the NYU Langone Medical Center and the City University of New York.  It opened a few weeks ago, after nearly a decade of planning, and was created in large part as a response to the September 11, 2001 attack on New York City.  Demian and Grace (right and center in the picture by Paul Taggart of the NY Times) are long time friends of CMS and often teach in the CMS Institute of Medical Simulation Instructor Courses.

Everyone here at CMS wishes the them the best of success with the new center.

Crisis Management Training for Practicing Anesthesiologists
Tuition: $1500
Meets the MOCA® Part IV Simulation Requirement

The Center for Medical Simulation (CMS) is offering intensive one day workshops in Anesthesia Crisis Resource Management (ACRM) for all anesthesiologists that will meet the MOCA® Part IV simulation requirement. These workshops have been approved for 7.5 AMA PRA Category 1 continuing education credits and are also eligible for Risk Management Study.

CMS Anesthesia Crisis Resource Management workshops are designed for those anesthesiologists seeking to practice their skills in managing critical events. The overall focus of these workshops is on learning the type of teamwork and generic skills needed when managing any kind of infrequent but critical event in anesthesia and opportunities will be made available to learn skills in managing certain specific events. During the workshops, participants requiring MOCA® certification will each have a turn as the primary anesthesiologist caring for the patient.

The Center for Medical Simulation is an endorsed program in the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Simulation Education Network, and has ensured that this workshop complies with the American Board of Anesthesiologists’ Maintenance of Certification in Anesthesia MOCA® Part IV simulation requirements. MOCA® is a registered certification mark of The American Board of Anesthesiology, Inc.

Schedule September 2011 – June 2012

September 8, 19, 22
October 6, 27, 31
November 3, 21, 28
December 5, 8, 12, 19
January 5, 9, 19, 23
February 6, 9, 13, 27
March 5, 19, 22, 26
April 9, 23
May 7, 10, 21
June 4, 7, 11

Additional Saturday and weekday courses may be scheduled pending demand. CMS welcome entire teams from your group by special arrangement . 

View Workshop PDF

Click here to Apply for this Workshop

For the past 4 months CMS has had the distinct pleasure of having Dr. Guillermo Ortiz-Ruiz as a visiting Simulation Fellow. Dr. Ortiz-Ruiz hails from Bogota, Columbia where he is the Director of the Critical Care Department at Hospital Santa Clara and the Director of the Postgraduate Program in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the Universidad el Bosque.  He is an internationally recognized expert on managing sepsis in the ICU setting and has published numerous articles as well as a text on sepsis. Dr. Ortiz-Ruiz came to CMS to receive in depth training on developing a world class simulation program. While at CMS he worked on a project creating simulation scenarios that utilize sepsis bundles.  After his return to Columbia, Dr. Ortiz-Ruiz will be involved in the development of a multi-site simulation program in Bogota. 

This Thursday evening,  June 23rd, Dr. Ortiz-Ruiz will speak at the Boston Simulation Community Research and Education Meeting on “Using Simulation to Improve the Management of Sepsis in the ICU”.  The meeting will be held at The Center for Medical Simulation, 65 Landsdowne Street, Cambridge, MA 02139 and will start at 5:30 pm.  Dr Ortiz-Ruiz will be returning to Columbia on Saturday. Everyone here at CMS will miss Guillermo and wish him great success on his new Simulation Center project.

“Association of Standardized Patient Educators (ASPE) recognizes Dr. Cate Nicholas as their 2011 Outstanding Educator of the Year”

Cate Nicholas, EdD, MS, PA, Director of Operations and Director of the Standardized Patient (SP) Program for the Fletcher Allen Heath Care/University of Vermont Clinical Simulation Laboratory was named the 2011 Outstanding Standardized Patient Educator of the Year at the annual conference of the Association of Standardized Patient Educators (ASPE) held in Nashville, Tenn.  ASPE is the international organization for professionals in the field of simulated and standardized patient methodology. The ASPE Educator award is given to individuals who have made significant contributions to the field of SP education and are recognized as leaders within their own institutions, the SP community and by national and international organizations.  Cate was recognized for her capacity to convince and stimulate others to work together to further the goals of ASPE, and for her humor and sense of purpose which has helped build a strong foundation for the organization. http://www.aspeducators.org/

Cate is an alumna of CMS’ Institute for Medical Simulation Comprehensive Simulation Instructor Course (August 2010) and the Graduate Course (April 2011). Everyone here at CMS would like to congratulate Cate on her receiving this honor.

F

Finished up the latest round of the Harvard Anesthesia Resident Performance Assessment Group Study (HARPAG) on Friday at CMS.

Dr Rick Blum, an Anesthesiologsit from Children’s Hospital Boston, is the Prinicpal Investigator of the HARPAG study whose aim is to improve patient safety by building on an ongoing pilot research study to develop an effective, credible, ongoing, simulation enabled assessment to more reliably identify anesthesia residents at an early stage of training who may
ot have attained sufficient skills. Rick believes that early intervention is more likely to have a positive impact on attaining proficiency or directing residents toward another specialty with the goal of ensuring that no underperforming resident graduates from a residency program.

NPSF Congress – May 2011 

CMS’ Jeff Cooper led a stellar team of simulation experts in conducting an amazing Plenary session at the National Patient Safety Foundation annual congress on Friday, May 27 in Washington, DC.  Doug Bonacum, VP of Safety Management for Kaiser Permanente and co-chair of the NPSF meeting, did a quite memorable introduction of Jeff to the audience.  Haru Okuda led a “sim wars”-like onstage simulation with an Emergency Department team from the Washington Medical Center, Medstar Health.  The team managed the care of a patient who had chest pain while in the audience.  Robin Wootten was the patient’s simulation wife and got him up onto the onstage “Emergency Department”, where he became a mannequin, of course.  An error committed by confederate nurse Jared Kutsin led the team to have a disclosure discussion with the family, accompanied by a (confederate) patient safety officer, who was in the audience.  Paul Preston and Connie Lopez led the debriefing of the disclosure.  Jeff ended the session with an overview of the scope and purposes of simulation.  The session was a powerful learning experience about simulation and especially its use for practice in disclosing adverse events.

Introduction of Jeff Cooper, NPSF Congress – May 2011 

All of us here at CMS know how remarkable a person and leader Jeff is, so it’s great when we hear that others feel the same way.  The following is the introduction to the audience at the NPSF’s Plenary Session  given by Doug Bonacum, VP of Safety Management for Kaiser Permanente and co-chair of the meeting: (more…)

Congratulations to CMS’ Robert Simon, Ed. D. CHFP on his recent appointment as a Visiting Professor of Medical Education at the International Campus of Excellence, University of Cantarbria in Spain.  In 2009, the University of Cantabria and  several other Spanish educational institutions, with the assistance of the Spanish Government’s Department of Education and Science and Education, collaborated to form an International Campus of Excellence.   Since then, the University and its partners in the Campus of Excellence have been working together to improve training, teaching, research and innovation in a number of identifed strategic areas.  One of these areas is in the International Campus of Biomedicine and Biotechnology and involves the Marques de Valdecilla Virtual Hospital (HVMV), a project developed in collaboration with various American Institutions, including the Center for Medical Simulation (CMS) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  This collaboration has evolved into a formal affiliation between CMS and HVMV whereby CMS serves on HVMV’s Board of Directors and advises it on items related to its services, training and research. With the aim of further strengthening the connection between the Center for Medical Simulation in Cambridge and the University of Cantabria, as well as making mobility between lecturers and researchers from both centers easier, The University of Cantabria appointed Robert Simon Visiting Professor of Medical Education at the International Campus of Excellence.

Dr. Simon joined CMS in 2002 as Education Director and now serves as the Director of its Institute for Medical Simulation. He is an Instructor in Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School and serves on the faculty of the Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Anesthesia, Critical care and Pain Medicine.  Dr. Simon’s background is as a human factors specialist and educator who for the past 25 years has specialized in research, development and training for high-performance, high-stress teams in aviation and medicine.  He worked as principal investigator for the US Army Aircrew Coordination Program, which applies lessons learned from aviation crew resource management to healthcare.

Dear Simulation Colleagues:

Please join us on May 10th, Tuesday from 5:30-7  at the Center for Medical Simulation, 65 Landsdowne Street, 1st Floor, Cambridge for a conversation with Marlys Christianson, MD, PhD, University of Totonto, Roman School of Business on using simulation to study and improve diagnostic problem solving. Dr. Christianson will present: “It doesn’t feel right”: How diagnoses are updated through interaction.

Dr. Christianson will talk about the challenges clinicians face in updating and revising their diagnoses in a timely manner in order to prevent or minimize error.  Why is it so hard for clinicians to change their original understanding of a situation, even in the face of mounting evidence that their understanding is mistaken?
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