Dr. Alaina Herrington is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Judith Gore Gearhart Clinical Skills Center at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. She has worked in the simulation since 2013 when she founded the first Mississippi Society for Simulation in Healthcare's accredited center. Her passion has been cultivating simulation educators through creating steps, tools, exemplars, and courses, leading them with the knowledge to achieve simulation certifications and accreditation. She has helped over 20 organizations from around the globe to become accredited in simulation. Some of her most significant contributions have been conducting a statewide simulation assessment, creating a statewide simulation faculty development program, founding the Society for Simulation in Healthcare’s Online Accreditation Courses, and being a creator/contributor of the National League for Nursing’s Nursing Edge Blog. She was recognized last year for her work as an Academy in Nursing Education Fellow and a Fellow in the Simulation in Healthcare (SSH) Academy.
Alaina Herrington’s Contact:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alaina-herrington-dnp-rn-fssh-anef-chse-a-cnor-ba54a277/
Sponsor: Inclusive Consulting: https://inclusiveconsultingservices.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/76504273/admin/
Innovative SimSolutions.
Your turnkey solution provider for medical simulation programs, sim centers & faculty design.
Dr. Alaina Herrington is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Judith Gore Gearhart Clinical Skills Center at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. She has worked in the simulation since 2013 when she founded the first Mississippi Society for Simulation in Healthcare's accredited center. Her passion has been cultivating simulation educators through creating steps, tools, exemplars, and courses, leading them with the knowledge to achieve simulation certifications and accreditation. She has helped over 20 organizations from around the globe to become accredited in simulation. Some of her most significant contributions have been conducting a statewide simulation assessment, creating a statewide simulation faculty development program, founding the Society for Simulation in Healthcare’s Online Accreditation Courses, and being a creator/contributor of the National League for Nursing’s Nursing Edge Blog. She was recognized last year for her work as an Academy in Nursing Education Fellow and a Fellow in the Simulation in Healthcare (SSH) Academy.
Alaina Herrington’s Contact:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alaina-herrington-dnp-rn-fssh-anef-chse-a-cnor-ba54a277/
Sponsor: Inclusive Consulting: https://inclusiveconsultingservices.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/76504273/admin/
Innovative SimSolutions.
Your turnkey solution provider for medical simulation programs, sim centers & faculty design.
Inclusive Consulting is prepared to help you meet the necessary needs and expectations of the diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility communities. Do you include disability education as part of your simulation learning objectives? Are your learners equipped with the necessary knowledge to respectfully care for and communicate with persons with disabilities? Statistically one in four adults live with a physical or mental disability. And Inclusive Consulting will collaborate with your team to meet your needs and establish real world practicalities to meet the global needs of the future. Connect with us at Inclusive Consulting on LinkedIn or our website detail in the show notes.
Intro:Welcome to the The Sim Cafe, a podcast produced by the team at Innovative Simsolutions, edited by Shelly Houser. Join our host Deb Tauber, as she sits down with subject matter experts from across the globe to reimagine clinical education and the use of simulation. So pour yourself a cup of relaxation, sit back, tune in and learn something new from The Sim Cafe.
Deb:Welcome to another episode of The Sim Cafe today. We're blessed to have Alaina Herrington. Dr. Herrington is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Judith Gore Gearheart Clinical Gill Center at the university of Mississippi Medical Center. She's worked in simulation since 2013, where she founded the first Mississippi Society for Simulation in Healthcare Accredited Center. Her passion has been cultivating simulation educators through creating steps, tools, exemplars, and courses, leading them with knowledge to achieve simulation certifications and accreditation. Welcome Dr. Herrington. And would you like me to call you Dr. Herrington?
Alaina:No, please call me Alaina. Deb.
Deb:Okay. Thanks Alaina. So Alaina, we first met virtually on, uh, a site review with Chad Epps, and I remember just being so impressed with the knowledge that you brought to the, the review and really enjoying doing that review with you and learning from you, and then continuing to watch you in some of the accomplishments that you have achieved over the years. So it's, it's a pleasure to have you today. And, uh, let's, let's begin with you to share your journey into simulation.
Alaina:Deb, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to be part of your innovation that you have. I have to add that I've enjoyed listening to these podcasts as I walk every day, I pull up your podcast. So it's exciting. So yes, I know what these questions are. How did I get involved with simulation? So in 2013, as you said, I started a new simulation center. There were 13 different disciplines at this large community college. And that what that really meant was that everybody didn't play in the same sandbox, so they didn't really traditionally work together. So we had to pull all of our resources in to develop one simulation center and I had no simulation experience, but on the bright side, I was gonna get some really soon because on my very first day of work, I flew out to the simulation conference. Then I was hooked. I knew sim was for me. I heard all, everything that, you know, it's a challenge to build a simulation center, but I was very fortunate. I had a$2 million grant to get started with, and we had 8,000 square feet. That was a former OB clinic and it had been donated to our school. So it was a great foundation to begin our program. So I began swimming like Scrooge McDuck literally in the, the research. It was hilarious. I just felt so overwhelmed though, with all the resources I knew I was very lucky to have them. So one thing that I read over and over, and again was how important it was to have space that was precious like gold. So when the 18 Wheeler full of storage bins arrived at our center, my sim tech thought I had literally lost my mind. It was full of storage bins, but she was quickly one over. She realized that I was a genius. Yes. And that we needed all those storage bins. Also, I really, really dove into the accreditation standards and because I did that and I used them like my Bible setting up our program and using them to develop our policies and procedures. I was able to get our new center accredited within two years. So that was so exciting for me.
Deb:That is such an accomplishment. And what a great story to just, you know, to have you were going ahead and building the center with accreditation in mind, especially in 2013, that was a while back.
Alaina:Yes. Yes. I think because I was so fortunate, faculty development became part of my heart and part of my why. So I really started diving in, on developing certification and accreditation resources. In my next role, we had another large grant and we were able to do a needs assessment. So I got to go to every simulation center or space in our state and really find out what their needs were work to develop an online platform for them that every faculty member could go through. And what we found in our needs assessment, and this was several years ago was that our state was really weak on theory, design, facilitation, debriefing, interprofessional, education, and evaluation. So all the basics that was really interesting in my most current role, I am working with standardized patients. And when I came over, I was a little overwhelmed because mannequin based and standardized patients was so different, but the same, it is a different world. It's a different lens to look through. So I'm grateful every day that I have such a good staff and, and team to work with.
Deb:Excellent. Excellent. Why don't you go ahead and share with our guests, your favorite or most impactful simulation story. This is always one of my favorite questions.
Alaina:This is my favorite question, and I've been excited to share it, um, because a lot of time simulationist, we don't get to see the impact that our simulations have on our patients. We do it, we get busy and we move on to the next simulation. It's great that sometimes we'll hear. Oh, so, and so said they had that same simulation or experience the next week and it was able to make an impact, but we really don't know how it's gonna affect generations to come. A lot of times, we always hope though that it's gonna impact our family or our friends and that our work made a difference. About nine years ago, my daughter was only five years old. Um, we had just started getting her to help with her chores. So she was unloading the dishwasher for the first time. And she brought an item to me and said, mom, what's this. And where does it go? Well, it was a ninja blade. So in that she dropped the blade on the floor and stepped on it. So it was late at night. And so then we, we rushed her to the ER and this child is very scared of anything with health cannot give her a shot. It is horrible experience, but so she was very hysterical and they could not hold her down in the ER. They tried multiple rounds ketamine. And finally, I think after the third round, it started to work, but she was hallucinating and she was telling me how she was seeing herself dead above her body and floating there. So it was pretty overwhelming as a mother to think of your five year old in this situation. So we did not know how we were gonna get these stitches out of her foot. I know it's something easy and I should have been able to do it at home, but that was not something that she was mentally able to do. So being a simulationist, I brought her to the SIM lab, we dressed SIM junior up and we put a wig on sim junior. We put her clothes on sim junior. We mouloged sim Junior's foot. And we oriented her to the space. And we said, Adam, this is a patient she's five years old. She's got this injury. Your objective is to go in and take the stitches out and to communicate with her effectively as you do it. So after that, she started working, we showed her how to take the first stitch off. And then she, she did it. She took all the stitches off. She was so proud of herself was still a little eerie. Whenever we went to take her to get the stitches out, I was really, really still worried. So she got in there to the doctor's office. Again, I know I could have taken these out, but mentally I couldn't have gotten her in that place. She told the doctor, no, you're not gonna do it. I've done this before. I can take the stitches out. And she did. She took her own stitches out at five years old over the bottom of her foot. So I thought that was really just impactful to me that my own daughter was seeing the benefits of simulation in our family did. So I know there's many, many other stories, but that was the most impactful to me.
Deb:No, that's a great, great story. I love that story. And I think that our listeners may, um, may use that at some point I used simulation with end of life, diagnosis of terminal illness, as well as, uh, hospice did simulations around them. And then when it was time to have those crucial conversations with family members, you know, we were ready for them and it is tough that it, as it is, it does make a difference to, to simulate things before you really are in that situation.
Alaina:Definitely.
Deb:Okay. Our next question is where do you see the future of simulation going?
Alaina:Looks like we just talked about with patient education. I really think there is more we can do with patient education, especially in the pediatric environment, as a mom, with a daughter, just needing a minor procedure. I couldn't even imagine if it was something big. So I really think that we need to focus on more efforts there. I think simulation is gonna become more of a requirement. I know right now it's, uh, it's optional a lot of times, but I think it's gonna become where our institutions require us to do it.
Deb:Yeah. I love that idea because when you think about it, when you are in a stressed situation as a patient or as a family member, you're not retaining all the information that you should be. So if you were to go ahead and have, you know, something simulated so that when you got home, you could look at it again, you know, just like a YouTube video, but for the specific condition of you, the person or your loved one. Yeah. I think that's really...
Alaina:Good idea. You, we should record the videos of the family doing the simulation and download'em and send them with them home.
Deb:Yes, exactly.
Alaina:<laugh>
Deb:You would have to get permission though.
Alaina:Yes, definitely. I think there's lots of other ways simulation could be used. Um, I think I've always wanted to put donors through simulation and let them either be the patient or be the healthcare provider and let them see where we struggle so much and how it could be beneficial. Um, maybe it's a new piece of equipment we're trying to get them to purchase and they could see the impact of the equipment. So I'm, I think that's always a great idea. Another thing I think is I can see, you know, healthcare simulation, we are not as advanced as maybe the airline industry in are doing simulations as, as often as they do, but we really do it well. And we have a wealth of knowledge that we could share with other industries. So I would like to see that healthcare simulation really shares their knowledge. For an example, I did a VR grant with an energy company a couple of years ago, and there was so much knowledge shared between the both of our industries. I learned from them. I mean, it was mutually beneficial. I learned they had a really cool checklist that they used before any high risk event that I thought that we could certainly use whenever we are trying to prevent fentanyl events that we know are common to happen at such times. So there's so many options, so many it's just incredible, especially with technology nowadays.
Deb:No, I, I totally agree. I, I very much agree. And I also believe that when everyone thinks alike, no one thinks a lot. So when you work with different disciplines, you get a completely different perspective and perhaps sometimes, uh, you know, might enlighten a blind spot that you may have.
Alaina:Yes. Oh, it makes you just think out of the box, think differently. An outsider looking in is gonna have a, a new perspective.
Deb:No, I totally agree. Well, my next question is, can you share with our listeners the biggest thing you'd like them to know something that when you learned it, it changed the way that you practiced some type of an aha moment, perhaps something to do with a accreditation.
Alaina:Deb, when I started working with standardized patients, it was different. It was a different perspective cuz I was trying to understand why they were coming to work every day because a lot of them didn't have to work. You know, they were, they're making$20 an hour, but it's only for like two hours. They really didn't need to work. So I asked them and I, I found out there why and their, why was to make a difference in our state and to change the way healthcare was done. You know, Mississippi is known for being the bottom of the list and everything. We have the most obesity, the most teen pregnancies. So this made really touched my heart and it made me think about why I do what I do. And so everything I do, I, I use my why now. And if I, if I cannot use that, why, and if I can't build on that, then I know that it's not something right for me. Um, you mentioned accreditation. My, why is that's the sustainable of the future of simulation? So we've got to spread the word, we've got to share what we know. I worked with a large group. I think it was a year or two ago now it was during COVID, but we worked to revise the companion documents. I'm excited to say that if you've looked at the companion documents on our website, um, more recently that there's so much more details there, it literally tells you exactly what the accreditation reviewers are looking for. There's examples there it's, they're really, really nice. I also help to start the core accreditation online courses. Those are really wonderful. It's a four week course and you have a max of 10 participants in the course there's narrated PowerPoints and optional assignments. And we really go over those sticky points from past organizations that applied. There's a lot of brainstorming and a lot of networking going on in those courses. It really gives people a clear idea of the process and how to be successful. Accreditation is a beautiful process. It's long, it's hard work, but once you get out, your program is made better. It's, it's kind of like a Pearl going through the clam shell process.
Deb:No, I love that you're a hundred percent right. Being on the council. We reviewed, you know, that doc document in detail and it is absolutely it. It's beautiful. It's a great, great document. Thank you for your hard work on that.
Alaina:Well, thank you. Um, I was excited to do it.
Deb:Yeah. It's the, those things, those projects that you work on as a group and you, and you come through'em and just like you said, it becomes a Pearl
Alaina:And surrounding yourself with people like that. Being part of those groups with people that have the why it helps you and helps enhance your why. So it's very rewarding.
Deb:You're very mission driven.
Alaina:Yes<laugh> yes. I think that's becoming, because I've, I've taught that core course so long and it's all about your mission and vision and you that's what you build everything from. So I think that's kind of resetting myself to what's my mission and vision.
Deb:Yes. Excellent. Excellent. Is there anything else that you'd like to share with our listeners or any questions for me?
Alaina:Yeah. What's next. That's what I think about every day when I'm listening to your podcast.
Deb:Wow, thanks. You know, I have podcast guests lined up and that, um, I really enjoy doing this. It's been very, very rewarding. Some of the compliments I've received have been just so kind. So I thank everyone for joining me and I thank those who are listening.
Alaina:Well, ask me, remember my why.
Deb:Right? Why are we doing this? We're all doing this to make a difference, right? We wanna make the world a better place.
Alaina:That's right.
Deb:Thank you very much. And happy simulating.
Inclusive Consulting Tag:The Sim Cafe would like to thank Inclusive Consulting for this week's sponsorship. Inclusive Consulting will teach your learners. What true DEIA is through simulation.
Outro:Thanks for joining us here at The Sim Cafe, we hope you enjoyed. Connect with us at www.innovativesimsolutions.com and be sure to hit that like and subscribe button. So you never miss an episode of The Sim Cafe.