The SingHealth Duke-NUS Institute of Medical Simulation's (SIMS) expertise in medical simulation training goes beyond providing a safe and supervised environment for healthcare professionals to sharpen their clinical skills. SIMS is also committed to Faculty Development of educators in the area of medical simulation training. As part of this drive, SIMS holds the
SIMS Simulation Educators Training (SIMS SET) – a signature programme designed for educators who wish to instruct and conduct simulation exercises that enhance medical training for their students. SIMS SET covers topics such as planning for simulation sessions, conducting clear briefings for participants, running immersive scenarios, and holding effective debriefings.
In April this year, SIMS collaborated with the SingHealth Anaesthesiology and Perioperative Sciences Academic Clinical Program (ANAES ACP) to tailor the SIMS SET (Anaesthesiology) course for the specific needs of Anaesthesiologists and Anaesthesia/Post-Anaesthesia care unit nurses. This two-day structured training was an interprofessional, inter-institution course with 26 doctors and nurses from Singapore General Hospital, Changi General Hospital, and KK Women's and Children's Hospital.
During this intensive train-the-trainer course, participants attended lectures on scenario planning and development as well as human factors in simulation. Experiential learning featured prominently with participants role playing as both simulation instructors and medical teams undergoing the simulation sessions.
Dr Chong Shin Yuet, Director of Simulation Education, ANAES ACP and Senior Consultant, Department of Anaesthesiology, Singapore General Hospital said, "This specialised course enabled our participants to develop perioperative scenarios that were familiar and relevant to the faculty-in-training. At previous SIMS SET that drew participants from different disciplines, it was often challenging to create scenarios that would be applicable to all the participants' medical backgrounds and training."
Dr Chong added that SIMS support for the programme was excellent. "It was a breeze working with such a responsive and responsible team. We look forward to future collaborations and are already making plans to run another SIMS SET (Anaesthesiology) course next year," she said. SIMS SET, which is conducted about three times a year is a platform for SIMS to work with different training needs to encourage peer-to-peer learning as well as the sharing of knowledge and best practices to advance patient safety.
