Medical students as simulation educators: students' experience of a 7-week simulation-based education rotation.

Medical students will have future roles as clinician educators, and need to develop knowledge and skills for that role. Specific skills in simulation-based education (SBE) may be valuable in many educational settings. We aimed to understand the impact of a 7-week placement in SBE on the development of medical students' knowledge, skills and perspectives as educators. We reviewed the experience of three graduated students (also coauthors of this article) who participated in the rotation in 2018. This case study includes analysis of the students' electronic portfolios, rotation reports and subsequent reflections of the student coauthors. Five themes were identified:-'Development as a professional', 'Active participation in an educator team', 'Diverse experience in simulation skills and techniques', 'Role models and mentoring' and 'Rethinking feedback'. Students describe the development of practical knowledge and skills, and more fundamental reflections on the nature of learning, feedback and their personal professional development. We suggest that integration of a simulation education elective within a medical school curriculum helps build capacity for effective SBE delivery, and has positive impacts on students for their future roles as doctors, educators and lifelong learners.

Identifying and Transmitting the Culture of Emergency Medicine Through Simulation.

BACKGROUND: Simulation is commonly used in medical education. It offers the opportunity for participants to apply theoretical knowledge and practice nontechnical skills. We aimed to examine how simulation may also help to identify emergency medicine culture and serve as a tool to transmit values, beliefs, and practices to medical learners. METHODS: We undertook a focused ethnography of a simulated emergency department exercise delivered to 98 third-year medical students. This ethnography included participant observation, informal interviews, and document review. Analysis was performed using a recursive method, a simultaneous deductive and inductive approach to data interpretation. RESULTS: All 20 staff (100%) and 92 of 98 medical students (94%) participated in the study. We identified seven core values-identifying and treating dangerous pathology, managing uncertainty, patients and families at the center of care, balancing needs and resources at the system level, value of the team approach, education as integral, and emergency medicine as part of self-identity-and 27 related beliefs that characterized emergency medicine culture. We observed that culture was transmitted during the simulation exercise. CONCLUSION: This study contributes to the characterization of the culture of emergency medicine by identifying core values and beliefs that are foundational to the specialty. Simulation facilitated cultural compression, which allowed for ready identification of values, beliefs, and practices and also facilitated transmission of culture to learners. This study expands understanding of the culture of emergency medicine and the role of simulation in the process of cultural exchange.