In healthcare, no one is an island.
Doctors and nurses are two critical components of any health care team. But patients may also need support from any number of specialists and allied health professionals, including physiotherapists and social workers. Effective, optimal care often depends on interprofessional teams who understand each other’s roles and can collaborate seamlessly.
That idea is one of the driving concepts behind the latest evolution of Queen’s Health Sciences’ Clinical Simulation Centre. The Centre, embracing the philosophy of integrated care, is bringing nursing, medical, and rehabilitation sciences students together for joint learning activities and scenarios.
Simulation learning prepares future health professionals to make high-stakes, life-altering decisions with confidence before they enter practice.
“You don’t want a pilot flying the plane for the first time ever at 35,000 feet,” says Dr. Richard van Wylick, Vice-Dean, Education, Health Sciences. “Having a safe, controlled place to start health education allows us to train people safely. A critical part of that training is for everyone to understand how people also work in different professions. To understand the nature of teamwork, and how people work together for the best possible outcomes.”
The Clinical Simulation Centre spans 8,000 square feet and includes four simulation rooms, three skills labs, and a control room. Rolling carts of supplies, from syringes and vials to resuscitation task trainers, line the walls; suction units descend from the ceiling. Fully equipped operating and recovery rooms host sophisticated manikins equipped to replicate a broad array of medical conditions on command. Together, the equipment and supplies mirror what is used in local hospitals, easing the eventual transition of learners into real-world clinical work.
“It’s simple, and easy, and natural to train professionals to work together—preparing them to work in the real world,” says Julie Bomba, a Simulation Education Consultant in the School of Nursing, of the integration. “Students in all our programs come out of this understanding each other’s realities, and how to communicate more fluidly. Alumni have told me that they’ve met people [after graduation] that they worked with here, and that the partnerships they started in the Simulation Centre helped them work in professional practice.”
With students learning together, the Centre has also been able to use shared equipment and teaching resources more efficiently.
“Medical, nursing, and rehabilitation therapy students use many of the same ‘task trainers’ for foundational learning,” says Mitchell Doherty, Director of Experiential Learning at the Centre. “We’ve realized that instructors from one profession can teach learners across different specialties. That cross-pollination really helps with capacity. We’re exploring team teaching for subjects like anesthesia, with mixed groups of medicine and nursing students. Planning is shifting to a global view of which facilities are best suited to teach specific skills, rather than booking rooms by discipline.”
“The level of engagement with this integration is through the roof,” says Heather Braund, Associate Director, Scholarship and Simulation Education at the Centre. She works with Centre staff and instructors on curriculum development: finding overlaps and ways to integrate interprofessional education at the course level.
While health education continues to evolve quickly, needing to keep pace with emerging technologies like AI, the core value of co-learning through simulations stays constant.
“I can hear the excitement when students come down the hallway, having just come out of a simulation and seeking opportunities to do more, even wanting to get involved in simulation research,” says Dr. Braund. “That’s the culture we’re trying to create here: a space where all students are comfortable making mistakes and being vulnerable, so when they get into practice, they don’t make mistakes.”
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