Development of a simulation technical competence curriculum for medical simulation fellows

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.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s41077-022-00221-4.