Simulation in Medical Education for the Hospitalist: Moving Beyond the Mock Code

Abstract

Simulation in medical education has grown due to an evolution in health care. It uses 4 main modalities to re-create a situation from the clinical environment to allow experiential learning and improve patient care. Simulation must be considered as an educational strategy within a larger curriculum. Building an exercise requires first developing goals and objectives and then designing the scenario. There are 4 phases of implementation, wherein the final debrief phase is critical for learning. Educators have used simulation for multiple curricular needs: communication skills, interprofessional education, clinical reasoning, procedural training, and patient safety, which apply to the inpatient setting.

Keywords: Clinical reasoning; Debriefing; Interprofessional education; Just-in-time training; Patient safety; Procedural training; Role plays; Simulation.