Mary Fey with the CMS team and Albertan sim educators at MacEwan University in Edmonton.

Colette Foisy-Doll is a Registered Nurse (RN) and a Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator who has been on the faculty at MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta, where she now serves as Director of the Clinical Simulation Centre, since 1994. She was one of the first pioneers of simulation-based undergraduate nursing education in Canada and has served as a consultant for the development of more than 20 simulation programs in Canada and around the world, including programs in Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and most recently in Turkey and Ukraine. She is also an alumna of the Center for Medical Simulation Comprehensive Instructor Workshop. MacEwan University has offered the Comprehensive Instructor Workshop twice, and most recently hosted the CMS Gateway Debriefing Workshop.

We recently received a touching letter from Colette Foisy-Doll, Director of the Clinical Simulation Centre at MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta. MacEwan had just hosted the CMS Gateway Debriefing Workshop, a one-day course which introduces healthcare education faculty to the foundational principles of “Debriefing with Good Judgement.”

Here’s what Colette had to say about the workshop:

Dear Jenny,

I trust that life is bringing heaps of goodness your way and I hope all is well in your world.

I am writing to send good news by letting you know what an amazing and transformational learning event Mary [Fey] and the CMS graduate facilitators provided for MacEwan University and our Interdisciplinary Healthcare Education Partnership community of practice. I was so very proud to be hosting this session and since last Thursday, have been barraged with wonderful remarks and positive feedback.

In keeping with the Center for Medical Simulation tradition of excellence through teaching Debriefing with Good Judgment, Mary provided us with a powerful and stimulating learning experience that was enhanced by the many gifts she so openly shares. She is amazing, and you already know that. It was especially meaningful to have Mary stay for our premier Sim-IPE HELP! Save Stan event where she got right in there, modeling debriefing and providing valued feedback for our facilitators.

She is a kindred spirit to all, not unlike other members of the CMS team. To me, this is one of the defining characteristics of your team and your collective work – you genuinely care about and for others and your commitment to empowering people fosters instant connections and life-long bonds that reach far beyond the outcomes of simple training sessions. Education is most valuable when it is emancipatory….

It is absolutely essential to spread the CMS word and to continue to transform our healthcare teams and environments one voice at a time while building capacity in our education/healthcare community. The Gateway course is very important because it brings the CMS experience to vast numbers of educators/HCPs that otherwise could not afford to partake. I hope many go on to taking the full course, but if they do not have access to funds, this is a huge opportunity to learn.

I am watching and noticing as CMS continues to expand and develop its programming and am excited to feel that I can play a small part of it!

All the very best to you and the team.

Cheers, Colette

And here is what Jenny Rudolph, Executive Director of CMS, had to say in response:

Dear Colette,

Thanks for this very touching and heartfelt message. It sounds like the Gateway course had a wonderful impact and that Mary Fey’s work was as magical as I know it to be.

You, of course, seeded the ground for this marvelous work with your long-standing commitment to excellence in debriefing, your skill, and of course heart!

What you describe below is the kind of impact and feeling that I think helps us all know why we are doing this work and inspires us to work hard to do more.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write.

Fondly,

Jenny