RESUMO
BACKGROUND AND NEEDS: Medical educators with simulation fellowship training have a unique skill set. Simulation fellowship graduates have the ability to handle basic and common troubleshooting issues with simulation software, hardware, and equipment setup. Outside of formal training programs such as this, simulation skills are inconsistently taught and organically learned. This is important to address because there are high expectations of medical educators who complete simulation fellowships. To fill the gap, we offer one way of teaching and assessing simulation technical skills within a fellowship curriculum and reflect on lessons learned throughout the process. This report describes the instructional designs, implementation, and program evaluation of an educational intervention: a simulation technology curriculum for simulation fellows. CURRICULUM DESIGN: The current iteration of the simulation technical skill curriculum was introduced in 2018 and took approximately 8 months to develop under the guidance of expert simulation technology specialists, simulation fellowship-trained faculty, and simulation center administrators. Kern's six steps to curriculum development was used as the guiding conceptual framework. The curriculum was categorized into four domains, which emerged from the outcome of a qualitative needs assessment. Instructional sessions occurred on 5 days spanning a 2-week block. The final session concluded with summative testing. PROGRAM EVALUATION: Fellows were administered summative objective structured exams at three stations. The performance was rated by instructors using station-specific checklists. Scores approached 100% accuracy/completion for all stations. CONCLUSIONS: The development of an evidence-based educational intervention, a simulation technical skill curriculum, was highly regarded by participants and demonstrated effective training of the simulation fellows. This curriculum serves as a template for other simulationists to implement formal training in simulation technical skills.
RESUMO
Introduction: One critical aspect of successful simulation facilitation is development of written scenarios. However, there are no validated assessment tools dedicated to the evaluation of written simulation scenarios available. Our aim was to develop a tool to evaluate the quality of written simulation demonstrating content validity. Methods: A comprehensive literature search did not yield a validated assessment tool dedicated for the evaluation of written simulation scenarios. A subsequent search yielded six templates published for written simulation scenario design. From these templates, critical scenario elements were identified to create an evaluation instrument with six components of scenario quality with corresponding anchors and rating scale. Subsequently, a national group of simulation experts were engaged via survey methodology to rate the content of the proposed instrument. Ultimately, a modified two-round Delphi approach was implemented to demonstrate consensus of the final assessment tool. Results: 38 responses were obtained in round 1, while 22 complete responses were obtained in round 2. Round 1 kappa values ranged from 0.44 to 1.0, indicating moderate to almost perfect rater agreement for inclusion of the six proposed components. Kappa values specifically regarding scale and anchors ranged from 0 to 0.49. After revisions, there was a significant level of agreement (p<0.05) of all items of the proposed assessment tool in the second-round survey except for item 10. Of note, all initial respondents indicated that they had never evaluated written scenarios with an assessment tool. Conclusions: The Simulation Scenario Evaluation Tool, developed using a national consensus of content experts, is an instrument demonstrating content validity that assesses the quality of written simulation scenarios. This tool provides a basis to guide structured feedback regarding the quality of written simulation scenarios.