The Sim Cafe~

The Sim Cafe~ Professor Melih Elcin

January 02, 2023 Season 3 Episode 13
The Sim Cafe~
The Sim Cafe~ Professor Melih Elcin
Show Notes Transcript

Professor Melih Elcin, MD, MS, CHSE-A

Professor of Medical Education

Department of Medical Education & Informatics

Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine

Department of Simulation in Health Sciences

Hacettepe University Graduate School of Health Sciences

Melih Elcin is currently the head of the Department of Medical Education & Informatics, Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine, and the founding head of the Department of Simulation in Health Sciences, Hacettepe University Graduate School of Health Sciences. He is the program director of MS and PhD of Medical Education, and MS and online MS of Simulation in Health Sciences. He is the president of Turkish Association for Medical Education. He is an active member of ASPE, SSH and SESAM. He is the chair of SP SIG at Society in Europe for Simulation Applied to Medicine. He is a certified healthcare simulation educator - advanced (CHSE-A). He is the recipient of 2019 ASPE Outstanding SP Educator Award. His areas of interest are program development, evaluation, clinical & communication skills training, standardized patients, interprofessional education, patient and healthcare worker safety, and medical humanities. He has over 50 peer-reviewed papers in those fields

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Intro:

Welcome to The Sim Cafe, a podcast produced by the team at Innovative Sim Solutions, 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 are truly blessed to have Melih Elcin from Turkey join us. Thank you so much. And what would you like me to call you during this interview?

Dr. Elcin:

It'll be easier if you call Dr. Elcin for example. More easier to pronounce it.

Deb:

Okay, thank you. I will call you Dr. Elcin. Okay, go ahead. And why don't you share with our listeners a little bit more about yourself.

Dr. Elcin:

I'm a family physician, uh, and, uh, I started, uh, as an instructor at JE at JE University in 2000 in the Department of Medical Education. My journey began as a medical educationalist, then, uh, evolved into the simulation, uh, field as a person of, uh, simulation. So for the last 23 years, I've been working in the Department of Medical Education, uh, at Aje Depe University in Turkey.

Deb:

Thank you. But how did you actually get into simulation? What led you into it? How did you get into, uh,

Dr. Elcin:

It's really a, a long story<laugh>, and it began in 2003 in the New Department of Medical Education in, in the, in the medical school. We were trying to develop a new program, a vertical program in the medical school. We call it good medical practice, and it included some parts of clinical and communication skills training at that year, I think my luckiest year in my life because an instructor, uh, from McMaster University joined us for a period of three years at that year. And I met Yare from Mastery, uh, in a conference in Turkey, in a GP conference. And, uh, we, uh, uh, I'm a family physician and he's a family physician, but we are trying to learn, uh, simulation. And, uh, by the help of these two mentors, we kicked off the first SP program in Turkey. Dan Janus introduced me to Deborah Kohan in New York, and I had the chance to work, uh, in her institution in the Merchant Center for four months as an observer. And when I returned to Turkey, Turkey, uh, I organized the first SP program in Turkey. And in 2007, I organized the first SP meeting in Turkey, uh, which evolved into a series of series of conferences in 2010 named simulation in Medical Education conferences. In 2010, we initiated a working group on interprofessional education and patient safety at Taje Depe University. And we were a group of faculty members from eight different, uh, schools of health sciences at Taje Depe University. And beginning from that year, we worked on several programs and projects, uh, together, and it became a vertical program in medical school in 2014, interprofessional Education and Patient safety program. In 2012, I became a board member in aspe Association of Standardized Patient Educators as the Chair of International Committee. It's a two year responsibility in the board, and followed by another two years as member liaison. In 2014, uh, I passed the exam and became a certified health sci, uh, health, uh, simulation educator. And with the contribution of the faculty members, which I was working, uh, in the I P E group, we founded the first Department of Simulation in health sciences in 2018. And, uh, I became the founding head of the department. And the following year we kicked off the first master's program in simulation in health sciences. And in the same year, in 19, in 2019, I received the outstanding s p Educator Award in aspi. And in 2020, I received the certification for advanced, uh, healthcare Simulation Educators. And this is my story in simulation.

Deb:

You have been in simulation a long time, and you sounds like you've really contributed in your area. Thank you for all you've done.

Dr. Elcin:

Thank you.

Deb:

Thank you. Now, Dr. Elcin, I'm gonna ask my second question. Can you share your favorite or most impactful simulation story with our listeners?

Dr. Elcin:

I don't know if there is the same job description, uh, in us or in other countries, but maybe there are similar ones. We have a job description, and we call it organ transplantation coordinators. And these are the group of people, uh, in health sciences, in their health professionals who successfully completed course and certified in this area. Uh, their job is to explain the brain debt to the next of kings in the hospital and then ask for organ donation. And this is all a lecture-based course, one week course for certification. And in 2000, uh, 12 or 13 something, we first implemented an, uh, simulated family encounters in this course. We were really, uh, stated about the effect of adding something like this and an experience-based part, uh, in such a lecture-based course. But the participants who interacted with the simulated patients families were really impressed with the experience they had. And we observed and experienced the impact of human simulation and the participants and under improvements because they had one encounter at the beginning of the course and one at the end. And you can easily see their improvements in one week. And, uh, we saw the magic of creating a simulated learning environment. This is the time we saw that how powerful, uh, tool we have and we can use it, uh, in our life because they are all working at professionals. They have experienced several times. Some of them were working as the coordinator, not certified, but as the coordinator, and experienced several real family encounters in that field. And some of them left the room crying during the simulations. And you see that you have a really powerful tool to use for several purposes.

Deb:

No, exactly. That's a tough conversation to have with family members. And I'm sure that as standardized patients, when they're even rehearsing that, that it can bring up a, a lot of vulnerable parts inside someone to, to talk about. So I'm sure that was very impactful. Thank you for sharing that story. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Yeah.

Dr. Elcin:

Thank you.

Deb:

Now, as part of Healthcare Middle East, uh, we appreciate what you're doing by, uh, helping that organization. And I'm curious about where you see the future of simulation going.

Dr. Elcin:

We are in the years of post pandemic time, uh, and especially in those post pandemic years, we all observe or sometimes we contribute to the rise of virtual simulation. So it seems virtual, augmented, or whatever you call extended simulations will be one of the important components of this word, this simulation word. In the future, however, there will be also improvements in the mannequin based simulation, and we will be using more sophisticated, more realistic, more human-like, uh, mannequins in the future. And human simulation will never be less important in the future. So my description for the future, uh, of simulation is a well-structured conent timely use of simulation, simulation modalities in education. You, you can use virtual, uh, mannequin based or human simulations in health simulation to make students get prepared in a safer way for the safer workplaces. So this will be the future. The safety issue is, uh, our main topic in the future, and we will use simulation for safer interventions, safer environments, and safer education.

Deb:

Thank you. I think that you're correct. I would agree with a a lot of where we're, we are gonna go now. Can you share with our listeners, especially since you're in Turkey so far away, what happened during covid for you in that area, in that region?

Dr. Elcin:

It all happened very suddenly and we were not ready in medical education in our medical schools or in health sciences education for such a period for such a difficult, tough time. And we were shocked at the beginning, then we decided to record. We haven't done it before, never we did. We, uh, had any recording of, uh, lectures in our schools. We, uh, we decided to record all the lectures and in a very, very short time in one month, we recorded around 1,500 hours of lectures. We organized several rooms, and each was full of faculty members trying to record their lectures. This is one part by means of medical education, but, uh, for the simulation site, our department, uh, has the responsibility for conducting this, uh, simulation part. And in fact, we were, uh, free to go on doing something or give up, uh, doing simulations. We preferred going on doing something. We had two main areas, communication skills and clinical skills. And we had courses in dentistry school and in medical schools. It's our responsible to my, the department's responsibility, uh, for communication skills. So for these two school, we developed a new telehealth cases for communication skills. We used Zoom and we prepared rooms, the zoom sessions, and it, uh, in each room we have, uh, SPS connecting from their houses and our students from their houses connect in this room and communicate with each other. And we recorded, and then we had sessions for, uh, debriefing 13 to 15 students in a group. And we watched their, with some of their videos, uh, and give feedback to them, uh, in that area. Uh, the thing is, we have 1,500 students in the first three years of medical students. So we, uh, conducted this sessions with 1,500 students, and we have 200 students in the dentistry school. And each student had two encounters during the years. It makes almost, uh, 3,500 encounters, interviews recorded, uh, conducted on the, on Zoom. And we had the debriefing sessions for the, uh, clinical skills part. We created boxes for each students. And for example, in the first year students, there are some sterile gloves we produced with a, a company, uh, actually a new personal intramuscular injection, pets, really new ones, and put it in the boxes for each student. And we put some other materials and sent those boxes to our students houses addresses. Again, it's 1,500 students and we have 100,000 boxes. And we stick the etiquette with my daughters and each of them at home, then send, take them, took them to the box, uh, post office. All the post office workers still knows me when I entered the post office. Oh, you are the guy coming who brought the boxes?<laugh>. Yes. So we were very famous. Uh, we were under televisions because it's a very huge project to send 1500 boxes to the students addresses. And we kind know we organized a kind of competition, uh, sent photographs from, with the boxes from your own city, from own, uh, from your town, and win a, a book for a company. And we received several, uh, photographs from our students, taken in their city, taken in their house, taken in their balcony with the city background. It's really an, uh, enjoyable time for us. All. The situation is worse than this, but it's a, it's a big project. And I want to thank to my dean, uh, and to Weis Dean, uh, for supporting us to create such a campaign for this, because it's, they, they found money for this. They, they really invented founding<laugh> because we had, we had no money. Uh, and they created the money from some other place, uh, places. And we produced boxes. We produced, uh, intramuscular injection pets, intravenous injection pets, and they're all new brands. We, we didn't buy it. We just found a find, found a company, and you gave the idea to them. And they produced the small parts for us. And the difficult part is to conduct the sessions. So every morning I wake up and with 15 students on my screen, I, first I demonstrate the skills to them. Then I watched their performance one by one on the, uh, on the screen and gave feedback to them. And it's, again, 1500 students. And we have three sessions for each student. Three times we came together with them, and it makes 4,500, sessions.

Deb:

Wow. That's a crazy volume. Yeah. So I, I think when I'm hearing you say, and I'm just gonna kind of paraphrase you really, you, you really got creative during the pandemic and you were very, very grateful for those who were able to fund you for this project. And you turned it into something fun by having the learners take photographs with themselves and their locations Yes. To kinda help build, build it up.

Dr. Elcin:

Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And in those days, most of our students have their own blocks or some other, uh, online, uh, activities. Uh, and they all used, uh, their own sessions in their programs, in their, uh, blocks. But I told them, just capture yourself, not the screen. So, uh, we, we should be careful about the ethical issues. You can show yourself how you watch us, how you perform something, but you cannot show your friends on the screen, in your programs, in your activities, in your programs. Yeah.

Deb:

Well, thank you. Now, 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 you practice, um, a personal aha moment for you.

Dr. Elcin:

Yeah. I tried to attend most of the SP conferences in the United States as a board member. Uh, I had to attend at least for four years, but for the other years, I tried to find some kind of funding because it's really an expensive travel for us, from Turkey to the USA and attending a conference there. Uh, in 2010, during the as SP conference, I noticed that a remarkable number of presentations were on ip. And this is the first time I met, uh, with ip because it's not an issue in Turkey. Uh, it's still not an issue, but it was not in that year. So it really opened my eyes and I said, yes, this is something we can do as an, in a way to issue in Turkey, in, in education, in, uh, health sciences education. And when I came back, I directly went to the dean's office and told him the case, told him what I experienced in the conference, and I told him that we should do something and as soon as possible, because if we can do something in a short while, then we really can become a leader in that field, in health sciences education in Turkey. Then he organized a meeting with the other deans of, uh, health sciences schools, and we organized the first working group in the, in our institution. And now, this was the beginning of a new program in medical school. We started in 2013, and for the last 10 years, it is still the only program in Turkey in health sciences. Now, for example, for the last two years, the program, uh, included 10 other school, uh, of health sciences. And we have faculty members from those schools. We have students from those schools, and the students from medical school and from dietetics, for example, nursing or pharmacy school students, they interact. And we are still the only one doing this. And we received an award for this program in 2016. So this is the really aha moment for, uh, for me and changed my focus to another, another era. And we did really innovative educational programs in that field.

Deb:

Thank you. Now, is there anything else that you'd like to leave our listeners with? Anything you'd like to share or any questions you'd like to ask me?

Dr. Elcin:

Thank you. I have no questions.

Deb:

You're welcome. Yeah. And you do know, I don't know if you know or not, but you can use these episodes to keep up with your CHSE certification. You just list the guest and then a couple things that you learned on the episode. Yeah. So, yeah. Thank you. Um, are you going to be at IMSH this year?

Dr. Elcin:

Yes, I'll be there.

Deb:

Okay, great. Great.

Dr. Elcin:

I will, I will be on the stage in the first day in the opening session.

Deb:

Excellent.

Dr. Elcin:

Now my story in this part,

Deb:

I will have to get to meet you then.

Dr. Elcin:

Yeah, me too.

Deb:

All right. Thank you very much. And happy simulating

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Outro:

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