Kim Harms
Staff reporter
kharms3@jccc.edu
The ninth annual Healthcare Simulation Conference concluded Friday evening in the Regnier Center. The two day conference brought educators from several different parts of the field to learn and teach about health care simulation.
All eight speakers at this year’s conference were directors, officers and physicians at Israel’s Sheba Medical Center and MSR (Israel Center for Medical Simulation). Tim Laughlin, who helped out with the event, explained what the conference was and the benefit to those who attended.
“The focus of this conference was debriefing and assessment. We primarily had educators from different health care environments such as nursing, paramedics and simulation. The main benefit would be to improve their overall simulation education and networking,” Laughlin said.
Friday’s activities started out in a main group during the morning and then broke off into two smaller groups in the afternoon. One group learned about debriefing and the other group learned about assessment.
Kathy Carver is a part of the planning committee for the conference and described how simulation is used in the health care programs at the college.
“[MSR] has been able to use simulation for testing. We use simulation in learning at the college. We can do [simulation] in a safe environment and we can talk about what is going on right at that moment,” Carver said.
Carver also explained how simulation learning benefits students who are in the health care programs at the college and why the college hosts the conference.
“Our practitioners are able to deal with the stresses of health care not just on student level, but on the professional level as well. We want them to be well prepared when they’re out looking for jobs. The purpose of [the conference] is train all educators in the health care field,” said Carver.
Health care educators and physicians who are wanting to attend next year’s conference can learn more on the college’s website.