About this Research Topic

Background

Simulation is a close duplication of real clinical situations in order to facilitate learning. It has now become an essential tool in healthcare education and training. From the patient safety perspective, it is only ethical that efforts are made to minimize inevitable injury as a result of the learning curve of the trainee healthcare worker or student. Simulation in healthcare education and training provides fertile ground for learning and practicing procedures repetitively in a safe environment, at the trainee’s own pace and time, until competence is achieved. Coaching can also be enhanced by other means such as an instructional video recording. Interpersonal skills of conflict negotiation and team interaction can be learned through simulation. Learning is further strengthened by feedback via debriefing and reflection. Besides teaching and learning, assessment of learning outcome or competence can be conveniently conducted via simulation. Online simulation is a delivery option to be considered.

The goal of this Research Topic is to showcase research in multi-professional simulation in healthcare education, inclusive of medical, nursing and midwifery to prehospital care to medical subspecialty training, and how simulation may be incorporated into online learning.

Some of the potential questions to be answered include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Is healthcare simulation being practiced similarly all over the world?
• How can simulation enhance inter-professional teamwork?
• Does simulation help in improving communication in healthcare, such as rehearsing important clinical conversations?
• Can simulation be adapted to become an effective tool for online learning?
• How can simulation help training assessment?
• Is simulation a cost-effective training tool in healthcare education?
• What are the safety or ethical issues in healthcare simulation?
• How can debriefing be conducted effectively online?
• Has there been recent innovations in healthcare training by simulation?
• How has simulation training contributed to patient safety?
• What is the framework for future research in healthcare simulation?

The scope of this Research Topic

• applies to all five simulation modalities—verbal role play, standardized patient (SP), part task trainers (including virtual reality [VR] task trainers or 3D or animal models), high fidelity electronic human-patient simulation, and screen-based simulation that cover the use of simulation for education and training, assessment as well as research
• covers usage of simulation modalities in obstetrics and gynecology, any field of surgery, pediatrics, disaster response, and emergency medicine
• includes application of simulation to assess new medical devices
• encompasses audits or assessments or validation of simulation programs or centers, and assessment of effectiveness of a simulator
• covers both simulations in a physical laboratory, in-situ simulation, and simulation sessions conducted online
• welcomes new approaches or practices in simulation especially, not limited to online simulation.

Online education that does not involve elements of simulation, such as didactic lectures, do not fall under this Research Topic.

Keywords: healthcare, simulation, training, education, online

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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