Revolutionizing Medical Education: Dawn Schocken's Impact on Healthcare Simulation

Discover the innovative journey of Dawn Schocken, the dynamic Director of Experiential Learning and Simulation at the University of South Florida's Morsani College of Medicine, as she shares the evolution of medical simulation. You'll be inspired by her relentless pursuit of transforming medical education and her influential leadership within the Society for Simulation and Healthcare. As we explore Dawn's experiences, including her critical role in adapting accreditation processes during the pandemic, you'll gain insights into how she plans to invigorate the Society's Fellow Academy with fresh initiatives focused on mentorship and innovation.<br><br>Through the lens of healthcare simulation, we delve into the importance of accreditation standards in safeguarding patient safety and the global impact of simulation education. Learn about Beaker Health, an exciting educational marketplace, and the newly launched standards for human simulation that recognize standardized patients as vital to the educational journey. Join us in understanding how empathy, compassion, and patient perspectives are crucial components in reshaping medical training for future doctors, ensuring they are well-equipped for the challenges of tomorrow's healthcare landscape.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Sim Solutions Podcast With Dawn
• 14:42 Highlighting Healthcare Simulation Standards

Transcript

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The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of anyone at Innovative Sim Solutions or our sponsors. This week's podcast is sponsored Sim VS . With their new IV pump simulators in the first of its kind in this critical learning area. with great realism and advanced like simulation med orders, gamified med orders and more! Sim VS significantly reduces the burden of properly I t The Sim Cafe, a podcast produced by the team at Innovative Sim Solutions, edited by Shelly Houser. V VS significantly reduces th burde o properl undefined I V t o learn in a safe environment t Welcome to The Sim Cafe, a podcast produced by the team at Innovative Sim Solutions, edited by Shelly House r. Join our host, Deb Tauber and co-host Jerrod Jeffries as they sit 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 Tauber: 1:30

Welcome to another episode of The Sim Cafe. Welcome Jerrod and welcome Dawn Shocken. Thank you so much for joining us. We've got a lot to unpack, so let's get started. Dawn, why don't you tell us about yourself and your role in simulation and how you got into simulation?

Dawn Shocken: 1:48

Sure, my name is Dawn Schocken. I work at the University of South Florida in Tampa and I currently am the Director of Experiential Learning and Simulation at USF for Morsani College of Medicine. When I was in the College of Public Health getting my master's degree, one of my professors, who was my advisor, sat me down and said what is your goal? And this was in mid-1980s and I said I'd like to change the face of medical education. And that is honestly what I said to her. I was like 21.

Dawn Shocken: 2:23

And she was like looking at me, like okay, sure. And I said no, seriously, because I had been working as a diabetes educator and doing some other side jobs. And I thought, no, that we really need to change the way people are taught. They need to be better at communicating, they need to be better at interacting with their patients. And so I got into this world from the back door saying I wanted to change medical education and, in my role, where I am right now, I'm making changes. We are creating much better doctors, providing a much safer environment for our patients through medical simulation.

Deb Tauber: 3:06

Thank you, Dawn, and you definitely are making a change. You are absolutely being a change in the face of medicine and the things that you've done for the Society for Simulation and Healthcare are just beyond overwhelming the stuff that you've done, and I thank you so much for that. Why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about what you do in your volunteer role for the Society for Simulation and Healthcare?

Dawn Shocken: 3:34

Well, I've just rotated off the board of directors, where I served for three years on the board of directors for the society. I have been a member, accreditation committee and then consul since 2010. I was originally working in risk, in a subcommittee of risk, and then I worked my way into reviewer education and then I worked my way into creating better standards and standard review, better standards and standard review. I eventually worked my way up to the chair of the accreditation council and I served in that role during COVID, which was an interesting time period because we had to pivot from doing in-person site reviews to doing site reviews that were virtual, which was a whole new animal for us. What do we ask? How do we know for sure it's really happening, what is going on? So it was a really interesting experience.

Dawn Shocken: 4:29

I did about 20 site reviews in the first year, which was completely insane. That's a lot of people to have to review. And then we moved into back from COVID. I was on the board and I was the liaison for the accreditation council. I also served in a leadership role to create our CHSE the Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator Review Course, blueprint Review Course that we're calling it now, and I've been doing that probably for 12 years, which is crazy. And then just recently I was elected as the chair of the academy, the Society for Simulation and Healthcare Fellow Academy. So we're making changes there and I've been very active in SSH. It's a fun place for me to play.

Deb Tauber: 5:24

Dawn, you want to talk a little bit about some of the things you're going to do with the fellows, sure?

Dawn Shocken: 5:30

I'm going to shake them up.

Deb Tauber: 5:33

So I know what to expect.

Dawn Shocken: 5:35

Yeah, so we've had this academy started in 2017. And it was originally like recognition of people who had done a lot of work for the society work for the society, but with the hope that they would continue to do more work for the society and provide leadership and mentorship to individuals coming into the society. That was originally what was going on when I got elected in. It wasn't really very active. I was put on their board of governance and we spent two years sort of just having meetings and not really doing much. And then I'm not quite sure how I got elected to the chair. I don't know if actually I was asked or I was voluntold, but suddenly I was elected. And then I worked for a year now at Jill Sanko and I just felt like we needed to do more. So I've created a series of different subcommittees. So there's an ambassador committee that's going to do mentorship, but there's also going to be a historical committee that's doing the.

Dawn Shocken: 6:40

You know what's going on in the society? How can we create a legacy? There's a section that's called social, which is creating new and interesting things for the fellows to do in an academy, and we're doing a whole variety of things. We have an education committee, we have a mission and vision committee, we've got a policy and procedures group, we've got a group that's going to be doing our elevator pitches. So it's going to be really exciting. We'll see what the next six months happen, what happens from now. It's always very exciting in IMSH and then you go home and then you're really busy and trying to catch up, and now we're trying to get our momentum back.

Jerrod Jeffries: 7:19

So it'll be more frequent check-ins throughout the year instead of just.

Dawn Shocken: 7:23

Right. So I'd like to have quarterly meetings with the whole group and then monthly meetings with some of the subcommittees that need to have deliverables right away. The group that's rewriting our application process I have to meet with every month because our application goes live in April and we have to have it up and running by then.

Jerrod Jeffries: 7:43

Great, Also another question I have. You mentioned that you did so. That was for the fellows, but this this is. You also mentioned that you did 20 accreditation visits the first year.

Dawn Shocken: 7:54

No, that was during COVID. No, I've probably done over 100 site reviews Okay wow. Since I've been doing this yeah. So you've seen you've seen a lot of sites. I've seen some sites twice. I've been with a lot of different individuals doing site reviews. It's really been joyful. It's really a lot of fun to go to a program and see what their program looks like and have them be so proud of everything that they're doing. It's really exciting, I think, joyful is the perfect word for it.

Deb Tauber: 8:24

It is just such an honor to have that opportunity and to see how excited they are to share what they're doing, and you've been a mentor for so many of us reviewers and it's just been a pleasure to do reviews with you. Thank you, thank you. Now do you have a favorite story that you can share with our listeners from a site visit, or a couple of them?

Dawn Shocken: 8:48

Oh, my goodness, I have so many stories. I could write a book about the different activities we've done. I remember being on a site review with Kathy at Yale and going through the program and seeing their church where the kids go and saying to the emergency department, do you guys ever go there? And they're looking at me like I had six heads. But we went over there to walk over to see that program, because it just is. It's so fun to be on the different campuses, to be at the different hospitals.

Dawn Shocken: 9:22

I was in the site review in just in Texas at one of our military programs and I took an Uber from the airport to the base and the Uber driver dropped me off a block away because he was afraid someone at the base was going to find out that he may or may not. I don't know what he was thinking, but he's like you're on your own. And I was with Amy Smith and we walked up to the base and they were like yes, and we were like, well, we're here for the site review, like you know, like you're going to take an airplane or something. And they're like you can't come in here. And we're like, well, we're supposed to be doing a site review at eight in the morning and they're like you need to register and then we will clear you and then someone will transfer you. And we're like, well, how do we get over there, sir? And they were like, well, you're just going to have to walk. And that was an interesting experience.

Dawn Shocken: 10:24

I was in another site review in Baltimore. We were doing a college of nursing in Baltimore at the university, and it was myself and Jane Smitten and Kate Nicholson. These are amazing women. And Kate calls us and says I'm snowed in, I can't leave Vermont. And this was way before we were doing virtual reviews. And over the course of the day, from when Jane and I got in, it snowed so much in Baltimore that we were snowed in. We were snowed in for four days. There was no food left in the hotel. We had to walk to the program in our shoes. That was. The snow was up to our knees.

Dawn Shocken: 11:08

Jane and I are Jane lives in Hawaii and I live in Florida we were very ill prepared for this very snowy site review. And we get to the building which was probably only three blocks away, but it felt like it was 17 miles away by the time. We marched our way through the snow and we were greeted by the SimOps person who was the only person who could get to the building. It was completely insane, but they gave us a wonderful tour. He was very sweet. We did most of the site review on phone because no one had any internet, nobody had any connectivity. We couldn't even read our documents that we had. It was just completely nuts. That was one of the most interesting ones, I think I did.

Deb Tauber: 11:49

Those are so memorable yeah.

Dawn Shocken: 11:51

And the other one that I had.

Dawn Shocken: 11:53

That's really really cool is I did a site review in Johns Hopkins at the School of Nursing and we went down to their research lab where they were trying to get research as part of their accreditation. They had an arm that was doing central line placement. It was a robotic arm doing central line placements on various different mannequins and it had 100% accuracy and I was so wowed by that, and so they're trying to get a patent for that arm because that could then potentially be a game changer for patient safety, because a robot's always going to do the same thing and it's not going to make mistakes. It's always going to be sterile, it's always going to. You know, there's no, no problems for trying to remember the steps or anything. And it was just so cool and I was trying to imagine myself as a patient laying on a table with a robotic arm trying to put a central line in my chest. I mean, I was just like trying to envision what that would look like. So that was pretty interesting too. I could go on for four hours.

Deb Tauber: 13:02

Yes, I'm sure you could Well, and I think some of the policies and procedures that we've had to create have been based on some of your outliers during the accreditation site visits that you've. You know witnessed.

Dawn Shocken: 13:10

Yeah, I had the most interesting policy and procedure that we created about taking funds, because I was in China for a site review, in which the minister of health came in with a bag of money and handed it to myself and the two other reviewers and the one reviewer just slid it over to me and he says you're the site leader, you take care of this. It was like 15 or $20,000 in $100 bills. I somehow have something written on my face just put throw money at her, she'll. She'll deal with it. Probably and we were.

Dawn Shocken: 13:45

We were really in a pickle because China's China, so what do you do with that? So I called Kristen, not remembering that we were 12 hours difference. She's in the emergency room with her tiny baby girl who had fallen off of a chair and hit her head and had to get stitches. And I'm like Kristen, I'm just not sure what to do. I have all this cash sitting in front of me. She says, well, you can't take cash. I said, yes, I know, I signed a document when I came in that I would not be leaving with more than like $100 in my pocket.

Dawn Shocken: 14:20

And now we have this. And she said, well, can you just walk away from it. I said I don't know, I'll try, and that's what we did. We walked away from it. We just left all that money on the table. I'm pretty sure the Minister of Health was quite confused, because that was probably something they did. I don't know but that we. Then I called Deb and I said we have to create a policy about, when you travel overseas, what this looks like. So we spent a while creating policies on that.

Deb Tauber: 14:42

I think it got to do with with just gifting and overall that you know we can't as reviewers, we can't just accept gifts.

Dawn Shocken: 14:52

Yeah, that was a hard one. $15, dollars would have been a major gift, you know yep yeah I mean, I don't know what to say.

Jerrod Jeffries: 15:01

I mean these, these stories? Like deb, we get some good, good ones, but I don't. I think these are. You just keep raising them up and up oh, believe me, don's got some stories.

Deb Tauber: 15:15

Yeah, with all that you're doing, what can we do to help in your mission, your mission of, you know, liking to change the face of medical education?

Dawn Shocken: 15:25

I think we're doing a really good job making sure the accreditations that we do mirror the standards, like that people are actually meeting standards, that we're not just signing things off and saying, yeah, you're doing this, yeah, you're doing that. It's just like with some of the education we do. We've created a really good foundation for people in simulation to be able to provide education and assessment and safety to our patients in a really standardized fashion, which I really appreciate. The simulation is not one size fits all, but having the perspective that what is the most important to us, which is the safety of our patients, stays as our front and center and our guiding force, and then everything beyond that helps guide that and that's the mission and vision that I operate on. That's the passion I bring to the table with my students at USF or with anyone that I'm teaching at all.

Dawn Shocken: 16:26

I try to have that You're not there to cause mayhem. You're there to create a sense of safety. Their lives are in your hands. This is the worst day of their life, because anybody in a healthcare setting when they're trying to seek care, that's not a great scene. So remembering that, coming from that kind of point of view, that's the perspective and we're doing a good job. We're helping people do that. We're teaching it across the globe for people to really pay attention, be aware, be kind.

Deb Tauber: 17:01

Yeah, because absolutely you know you speak to those moments that matter to patients, when they're you know they're having the worst time of their life and we have to consider that and treat them with compassion and with empathy, with respect that they deserve, especially in those times. Aren't you have any questions for Jared?

Dawn Shocken: 17:22

and I Well, I'm not quite sure what Jerrod does.

Jerrod Jeffries: 17:28

Oh, you said you were in Nashville.

Dawn Shocken: 17:30

That was all you said.

Jerrod Jeffries: 17:31

Well, I of course, help Deb doing the podcast of Sim Cafe as a co-host, but in addition I have a company called Beaker Health where we are an education marketplace. So we white label with health care simulation organizations and we help them improve the content by allowing disseminate through all members. Improve the content by allowing it to disseminate through all members and so you're able to share best practices and raise the benchmark within healthcare simulation.

Jerrod Jeffries: 17:59

So we work with SimGhost Aspie, we've worked with INASCL Simulation, Canada. So different groups in order to help grow membership, push up best practices and also save time from the organizational side. So we're removing the time burden while raising best practices and also save time from the organizational side. So no one. So we're removing the time burden and while raising best practices and visibility.

Dawn Shocken: 18:18

That's cool. Thank you, I appreciate that.

Deb Tauber: 18:21

Thank you, Dawn. Do you have any final closing thoughts for our listeners, for our listeners that you want them to take away from today, besides the funny stories?

Dawn Shocken: 18:32

Well, we just are launching the standards for human simulation, which I think are really exciting. Looking at standardized patients and how we can support their roles within our simulation community is so important. ASPIE has some very fine standards of best practice that we've built our standards upon, and individuals will be able to apply for human simulation and core without having to do all the other incidental areas of accreditation that we offer in accreditation. But I think it's important to recognize that as a community we're all working together. So having thoughts that people are putting out standards of best practice and then supporting them and then be blind to the group that they're coming from, that everybody's working on the same thing for the safety of our patients, is where I would leave this.

Deb Tauber: 19:32

Thank you. Yeah, you've done so much with that and it's so exciting to see the three programs that were recognized for achieving this and all the other programs that are interested in becoming accredited. And what makes this different for you? What are some of the things that you didn't see coming during this time?

Dawn Shocken: 19:55

I think the thing that makes it different for what we're calling human simulation slash standardized patient is. For a long time it was considered SPs, were considered a modality, and we used that word SPs to dehumanize the fact that they were people who were providing a service with us. And so by creating standards that recognize that they're part of the education, that they're part and parcel of how we do both teaching and feedback and assessments and feedback as part of our community is really important, and that's been revisioned by the standards of best practice that ASPIE put out several years ago, but also because they're also coming up with their own accreditation process of whatever that looks like. I haven't looked at it in great detail, but the recognition that as we grow as a simulation community, we embrace the fact that those who are working as standardized patients. They may not be our formal educators, but they are part of our community and they're representing the patient perspective at all times. So I think I'm very excited about that.

Deb Tauber: 21:13

Thank you. Thank you for all you're doing Jerrod , do you have anything you want to follow up with?

Jerrod Jeffries: 21:17

No, I appreciate the time and all you've done for the healthcare simulation industry. You're a woman of many stories and hopefully we get the chance to hear a few more of them offline.

Dawn Shocken: 21:26

Absolutely. A glass of white wine and a quiet place, perfect, perfect.

Deb Tauber: 21:31

Thank you very much, and a quiet place, perfect, thank you very much and happy simulating, thank you.

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