Association of Simulation Participation With Diagnostic Reasoning Scores in Preclinical Students.

Purpose: The aim of the study was to evaluate for an association between the number of voluntary mannequin simulation sessions completed during the school year with scores on a year-end diagnostic reasoning assessment among second-year medical students.

Method: This is retrospective analysis of participation in 0 to 8 extracurricular mannequin simulation sessions on diagnostic reasoning assessed among 129 second-year medical students in an end-of-year evaluation. For the final skills assessment, 2 physicians measured students' ability to reason through a standardized case encounter using the Diagnostic Justification (DXJ) instrument (4 categories each scored 0-3 by raters reviewing students' postencounter written summaries).

Developments in the Transition From Animal Use to Simulation-Based Biomedical Education.

There has been a significant shift from the use of animals in biomedical training exercises toward simulation-based education methods. The transition has been driven by technological advances, empirical evidence of improved student outcomes, cost-effectiveness, and a growing concern for the welfare of animals. These factors have spurred policy changes worldwide in how medical and science curricula are delivered.

Simulation-based Assessment to Reliably Identify Key Resident Performance Attributes.

Background: Obtaining reliable and valid information on resident performance is critical to patient safety and training program improvement. The goals were to characterize important anesthesia resident performance gaps that are not typically evaluated, and to further validate scores from a multiscenario simulation-based assessment.

Methods: Seven high-fidelity scenarios reflecting core anesthesiology skills were administered to 51 first-year residents (CA-1s) and 16 third-year residents (CA-3s) from three residency programs.

The use of in-situ simulation to improve safety in the plastic surgery office: a feasibility study.

Objective: Simulation-based interventions and education can potentially contribute to safer and more effective systems of care. We utilized in-situ simulation to highlight safety issues, regulatory requirements, and assess perceptions of safety processes by the plastic surgery office staff.

Methods: A high-fidelity human patient simulator was brought to an office-based plastic surgery setting to enact a half-day full-scale, multidisciplinary medical emergency.

Research regarding methods of assessing learning outcomes.

As the use of simulation-based assessment expands for healthcare workers, there is a growing need for research to quantify the psychometric properties of the associated process and outcome measures.

Differences in safety climate among hospital anesthesia departments and the effect of a realistic simulation-based training program.

Background: Safety climate is often measured via surveys to identify appropriate patient safety interventions. The introduction of an insurance premium incentive for simulation-based anesthesia crisis resource management (CRM) training motivated our naturalistic experiment to compare the safety climates of several departments and to assess the impact of the training.

Methods: We administered a 59-item survey to anesthesia providers in six academic anesthesia programs (Phase 1).

Anesthesia information management systems: a survey of current implementation policies and practices.

Background: Anesthesia information management systems (AIMS) implementation is increasing, but there are no published recommendations from anesthesia professional societies to guide configuration and policy decisions that affect billing, security, medical-legal, and compliance issues.

Methods: A 45-question structured survey was developed by a committee of the Society for Technology in Anesthesia and was sent to the clinical administrator at 18 separate institutions, comprising six different installed AIMS systems. The primary goal of the survey was to establish a baseline of current policies and practices.