A comprehensive medical simulation education curriculum for emergency medicine residents

Abstract

Medical simulation allows trainees to experience realistic patient situations without exposing patients to the risks inherent in trainee learning and is adaptable to situations involving widely varying clinical content. Although medical simulation is becoming more widely used in medical education, it is typically used as a complement to existing educational strategies. Our approach, which involved a complete curriculum redesign to create a fully integrated medical simulation model with an "all at once" implementation, represents a significant departure from conventional graduate medical education models. We applied adult learning principles, medical simulation learning theory, and standardized national curriculum requirements to create an innovative set of simulation-based modules for integration into our emergency medicine residency curriculum. Here we describe the development of our simulation modules using various simulation technologies, their implementation, and our experiences during the first year of integration.