WCM-Q hosts simulation educator course

Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q) recently held its fourth annual "Simulation Educator Course: Designing and Debriefing Effective Simulations”, offering clinicians, technologists, health professionals, and educators an opportunity to master the effective use of simulation-based education.Over two days, participants explored the theoretical foundations of simulation-based learning and designed simulation scenarios aligned with healthcare simulation standards of best practice.The course emphasised the three-step approach of prebrief, simulation, and debrief to ensure psychological safety for learners to identify and address gaps in their knowledge and practice.Discussions revolved around emerging evidence on the importance of eliciting learners’ emotional reactions at the outset of any debriefing conversations to ensure emotions did not block cognition and to provide a forum for practitioners to recognise and express "stressful situations” and learn approaches to manage similar emotions in the clinical setting.The course was designed and delivered by Dr Stella Major, a professor of family medicine teaching in medicine and director of the Clinical Skills and Simulation Lab (CSSL) at the WCM-Q, and Dr Michelle Brown, an associate professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, founding programme director of the healthcare simulation master’s degree, educator in the Office of Interprofessional Simulation, and director of research for the Office of Interprofessional Simulation.They were joined by three simulation facilitators: Rudy Bahri, the manager of CSSL at WCM-Q; Arlene Masaba, from the Nursing Department at the University of Doha for Science and Technology’s College of Health Sciences; and Dr Maham Batool Hadi, a clinical tutor at Qatar University’s College of Medicine."Thus far, our course has welcomed 136 participants from Qatar and the Mena (Middle East and North Africa) region and offered them an opportunity to meet, experience, reflect, and discuss ways they can enhance their skills as simulation practitioners,” said course director Dr Major.This year, the course welcomed 36 participants, including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, allied health professionals, healthcare simulation professionals, technologists, and educators.