Advanced Instructor Course

Advanced Instructor Course

Build a Culture of Learning

You’ve invested time and resources in your own debriefing training, but every time you run a simulation, students are more focused on exam questions than reflection and growth.

You’re eager to support your peers in improving their debriefing, but when you offer constructive feedback, you encounter resistance and pushback.

You find yourself stumped during a debriefing, not sure where to go when your learner just truly doesn’t seem to be getting the content.

If this sounds familiar, you are not alone!

The Advanced Instructor Course provides hands-on tools to help healthcare educators and simulation instructors navigate real-world challenges. Building a true culture of learning grounded in feedback, reflection, and growth is complex work. Even the most committed educators encounter inertia when trying to shift mindsets and practices.

This course equips you to sail through challenges with skill and confidence. You’ll create more impactful learning experiences, foster resilient learners, and contribute to a stronger culture of growth within your organization.

Whether you are a clinician, educator, administrator, or team leader, you will learn alongside a diverse cohort of peers committed to advancing their ability to lead meaningful learning conversations. Through immersive, practice-based learning, you will develop the skills to act as a strategic partner in advancing learning and culture within your institution.

 

Using cutting-edge educational theory and practice, the Advanced Instructor Course presents a conceptual framework that employs repeated micro-cycles of practice and feedback on debriefing, scenarios, and strategic challenges. This approach accelerates skill acquisition and showcases effective methods for faculty development. You will engage in a model of peer- and mentor-led “community of inquiry,” allowing you to reflect on your own and others’ instructional and management practices in action.

Each course will feature several globally-recognized CMS faculty members who will coach learners in intensive small groups. Focus areas will include advanced debriefing practice, advanced scenario development, and the cultivation of self-observation and reflection skills.

We look forward to seeing you and watching you grow even more!

We are excited to begin this new adventure in online education. Your learning begins before the course starts through online feedback and interaction with faculty on the course pre-work assignments.

Why Attend the Advanced Instructor Course?

The Advanced Instructor Course is a four-day immersive course for healthcare simulation instructors worldwide who want to strengthen their ability to navigate complex situations in feedback, coaching, and debriefing.

Organizational culture is built one debriefing at a time. A single, high-quality reflective conversation can shift how individuals think, how teams collaborate, and how care in delivered. These moments create powerful ripple effects that extend beyond the debriefing room and into real clinical practice. But these culture-transforming conversations don’t happen by accident. They require intention, specific skills, and the ability to balance psychological safety with candor. Grounded in the Center for Medical Simulation’s Good Judgment approach, this course makes you ready to lead these conversations effectively: an investment in better learning, stronger culture, and improved patient outcomes.

What will I be ready to do after attending this course?

After completing this course, you will be ready to:

  • Serve as a strategic partner in transforming learning and culture within my organization
  • Lead powerful, reflective learning conversations in simulation and beyond
  • Give and receive feedback with learners, peers, and mentors
  • Co-create psychological safety while upholding high standards for performance
  • Build adaptive learning expertise with individuals and teams
  • Use conversations to transform frames

Who should attend the Advanced Instructor Course?

Clinicians, educators, simulation instructors, and healthcare leaders who are ready to move from competent debriefing to advanced, intentional culture-building through teaching and debriefing.

Tuition

Individual Attendee Tuition for courses held at or hosted by CMS: $6,995 USD

Participant Comments:

"The course is provided with respect and understanding to both learners and instructors who have passion for truth, safety, and the advancement of improved outcomes in healthcare through simulation."
"Course is conceived with exquisite detail to gain better understanding of the learner as well as the instructor."
"The faculty was absolutely amazing. The curriculum was very very well designed as expected and I learned a lot."
"Immense gratitude for the thought, preparation, and organization that went into the creating and execution of the course. Humbled by the process."

 

In Person Training Requirement: Complete Vaccination series and Booster against COVID-19

The Center for Medical Simulation (CMS) requires course participants to have completed the COVID-19 vaccine series and the COVID-19 booster to attend in person training. We will ask you to complete an attestation form stating that you are vaccinated in order to attend the course. A copy of your vaccination card is not required by CMS; however, you will need to show proof of vaccination for certain venues in Boston during your stay.

Want to host this course at your institution?

Contact us

Upcoming Courses:

The next AIC at the Center for Medical Simulation (CMS) is currently planned to be held in person in October 2025 in Boston, MA USA. Registration will open in 2025. Please Contact Us for any questions or to register your interest.

Application Process:

Complete the online application form. No other information is needed.

  1. Complete the online application form;
  2. Complete the Supplemental Advanced Instructor Course Application Form which asks you to provide:
    • A short biosketch including your simulation and debriefing experience
    • Your goals for the course
    • A one-paragraph overview of a scenario you might like to run in the course
    • (Optional) An overview of a strategic challenge with which you would like assistance

    We recommend that you prepare your responses offline as some of the questions require a bit of self-reflection. To assist you in preparing your responses, please download and use the AIC Supplemental Application Form Preparation Worksheet, a Microsoft Word version of the form.

  3. Application is complete when both the online application form and Supplemental Advanced Instructor Course Application Form responses are submitted. An admissions committee then reviews your materials.
  4. Admission decision will be sent to you within approximately two weeks of receipt of your completed application.

Course Offerings

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Course Dates
Location
Notes
Tuesday, September 22, 2026 @ 9:00 AM -
Friday, September 25, 2026 @ 5:00 PM
Center for Medical Simulation (CMS), Boston, MA

Held in person at CMS in Boston, MA.

Application Deadline: Sept. 1, 2026

Apply Now

Policies

Please review the important policy information below.

  • Payment
  • Cancellations
  • Enrollment
  • Course

The Center for Medical Simulation accepts payment by credit card, ACH payment, wire transfer, or cashier’s check in U.S. dollars. Personal checks are not accepted. You will be receiving an invoice via email, no paper invoices are issued. Your payment is due immediately upon receipt.

If you have any questions regarding pricing or our policies, please Contact Us.

If you must cancel we will refund your tuition less a processing fee provided another paid candidate is able to fill your seat. Otherwise, you will forfeit half your tuition. If you would like to switch to a course offered at a different date, we will apply your tuition toward the new course provided another paid candidate is able to fill your current seat. Otherwise, you will forfeit half your tuition. If you still want to switch to another course date we will apply half of your paid tuition and you will be billed for the remaining half. Please note that the tuition for a course offered at a later date may be higher. In that case, individuals switching to the later course date will need to pay the difference in the tuition fees.

Processing Fees

  • $250 for administration and processing for Healthcare Simulation Essentials: Design and Debriefing course (formerly known as the Comprehensive Instructor Workshop) and Advanced Instructor Course participants
  • $100 for administration and processing for MOCA, Anesthesia and Labor and Delivery Crisis Resource Management Training and Gateway Debriefing Skills course participants

If you have any questions regarding pricing or our policies, please Contact Us.

You will be informed of acceptance to your selected course/workshop by email within two weeks of our receiving your completed application. Your tuition is due immediately upon acceptance. Once accepted you will receive another email containing an invoice with payment instructions.

Please note that acceptance does not mean enrollment. Once accepted, you are placed on a wait list.

You are not enrolled, and do not have a reserved seat, until we have received your full tuition. Course seats are filled in the order we receive tuition payments. Since our courses fill quickly it is important for you to send in your tuition immediately to secure a seat.

Once your tuition payment is received, you will be taken off the wait list and enrolled in your desired course/workshop provided a seat is still available. If all seats in your preferred course/workshop are filled by the time we receive your tuition payment, you will be informed that it is full and given the option to remain on the wait list in the event that a seat later become available, switch to another course at a later date with available seats or receive a refund.

If you have any questions regarding pricing or our policies, please Contact Us.

Required to Observe or Participate in the Course

Confidentiality of Information

During your participation in courses run by the Center for Medical Simulation (CMS), you may observe the performance of other individuals managing medical events and debriefing of those events. It is also possible that you may be a participant in these activities. You are asked to maintain and hold confidential all information regarding performance of individuals and details of the simulated cases.

By applying for this course, you acknowledge to having read and understood this statement and agree to maintain the strictest confidentiality about any observations you make regarding the performance of individuals and the simulated cases.

Permission to Review Video Recordings for Educational Purposes

During the course, you may participate in realistic simulated cases of medical events and/or simulated debriefings that may be video recorded for review during debriefings as part of the educational experience. The goal is for the facilitators to provide focused feedback to the team. The faculty may review these recordings at a later date for quality improvement of the training.

By applying for this course, you acknowledge to having read and understood that you may be video recorded in the course and agree to allow CMS faculty to review these video recordings for educational purposes.

If you have any questions regarding pricing or our policies, please Contact Us.