CMS’ Institute for Medical Simulation held a 5 1/2 day Simulation Instructor Workshop last week at its offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Attending the course were twenty physicians, nurses and educators from around the world including countries as far away as China and Australia.

Established in 2004 and updated through the years, the Comprehensive Instructor Workshop in Medical Simulation is the Institute’s most comprehensive and immersive program. Attendees represent a wide range of experience, disciplines and specialties, but all share one common goal: to become outstanding educational leaders or directors of a current or prospective simulation program. With experiential education being the keystone of simulation, the course is a mix of theory, practice and feedback so that students develop a strong and comprehensive understanding of how to most effectively use simulation within their education programs. Widely respected, dedicated educators with years of simulation experience lead the course with one main goal in mind: Transform every IMS student to be an outstanding educator.

For this workshop, a new half-day module, led by Sharon Muret-Wagstaff PhD, MPA, was added that positions clinical simulation leaders to understand the steps needed to choose, use, or create an assessment instrument. The new curriculum features three case studies of clinicians using assessment to enhance learning in their institutions. One case highlights the challenges clinicians face in choosing the right assessment instrument to assess learning outcomes in PALS courses. Another case outlines how clinicians can use already-validated teamwork instruments to assess the efficacy of simulation based teamwork courses. And, the third case illustrates how assessment can be important at the level of the overall simulation program by helping simulation center leaders think through how to assess the success for their center as a whole.