Spotlight On CMS Adjunct Faculty Member Dr. Sarah Janssens

Posted by
Blog - Spotlight On CMS Adjunct Faculty Member Dr. Sarah Janssens

One of the Center for Medical Simulation’s greatest strengths is the quality and depth of its faculty. We are fortunate to have a select number of outstanding faculty members who help teach our courses all over the world. Some are based here in the Boston area, but many hail from places as far flung as Hong Kong, Australia, England, Spain, and France to name a few.  Their backgrounds vary, but each one is exceptional educator capable of helping to deliver the type of high quality, transformative educational experience that is the hallmark of CMS’ faculty development courses.

One of these outstanding educators, Dr. Sarah Janssens, will be assisting Mary Fey, PhD when CMS delivers  its Online Healthcare Simulation Essentials: Design and Debriefing Course (HSEDD) for the Centre for Healthcare Simulation (CHS) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) next month.

CMS recently asked Dr. Janssens to tell us a bit about herself.

Background

Dr. Sarah Janssens, MBBS, FRANZCOG, PhD Candidate is a Senior Staff Specialist, Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Mater Mothers’ Hospital (Brisbane, Australia), the Clinical Simulation Director at Mater Education, and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland.

Sarah studied medicine at the University of Queensland and began working at Mater after completing specialty training in 2012. Since then she has developed her skills as a simulation educator through numerous courses including NHET-sim and the Center for Medical Simulation’s Simulation as a Teaching Tool and Advanced Debriefing courses. She also completed a 6 month fellowship at CMS and is a PhD candidate at Monash University.

Simulation Interests

Like a medical degree, working in simulation leads to endless possibilities!  There are so many various ways that simulation can help drive improvements in education, training, healthcare systems – all ultimately to improve outcomes and experience for our patients.

Current Projects

Variety is the spice of life, right?  Some of the projects I’m working on include seeking to understand the impact of pandemic protocols on teamwork and performance in Advanced Life support, developing realistic simulation models for the detection of obstetric anal sphincter injury, hot debriefing after critical events and improving team co-ordination in maternity teams.

Research/Teaching Focus

The focus of my PhD is looking at shared leadership in healthcare emergency response teams – is sharing better caring?  I hope to find out.  Our hospital’s current clinical excellence focus is on reducing the incidence and morbidity of preterm birth – so many of our simulation and education endeavors are supporting this.

Recent Publications

Byford S Janssens S, Cook, R. Implementing the transvaginal ultrasound simulation training (TRUSST) programme for obstetric registrars. Advances in Simulation, 2021, January. doi.org/10.1186/s41077-020-00152-y

Janssens S, Simon R, Barwick S, Beckmann M, Marshall S. Leadership sharing in maternty emergency teams: a retrospective cohort study in simulation. BMJ STEL,  2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjstel-2018-000409

Yu M, Wilson E, Janssens S. Simulation-based educational package to improve delivery of  the deeply impacted fetal head at caesarean section. ANZJOG Obstetric Gynaecology 2019; 1-4. DOI: 10.1111/ajo.12946.

O’ Sullivan C, Janssens S, Warhurst K, 2019, ‘BOGGLE Your Brain: An Online Forum for Obstetrics and Gynaecology Graduate Medical Education in a Tertiary Maternity Hospital’, MedEdPublish, 8, [2], 44, https://doi.org/10.15694/mep.2019.000114.1

Personal Interests

When I’m not working clinically I tend to enjoy my family’s interest in sailing and boating on Brisbane’s beautiful Moreton Bay.