The Sim Cafe~

Unlocking Simulation Success: Insights from Erin Carn-Bennett

• Deb Tauber • Season 3 • Episode 97

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Step into the vibrant world of clinical education through simulation with this immersive episode of our podcast! As we engage with Erin, a passionate nurse educator from New Zealand, we delve into the powerful impact that simulation training has on healthcare professionals and patient outcomes. Discover how organizations like the International Pediatric Simulation Society (IPSS) are pivotal in uniting practitioners from around the globe to share invaluable resources and insights. <br><br>Erin shares her journey into simulation and highlights her groundbreaking course, "Sim to Lead," which prepares healthcare workers to lead critical emergencies effectively. Through rich storytelling, we examine how these simulations not only hone technical skills but also emphasize essential leadership qualities in high-pressure situations. <br><br>Join in as we unpack the challenges and opportunities facing the simulation community, encouraging healthcare professionals to find their tribe and engage with others. This conversation is an invitation to rethink the ways we approach clinical education and to embrace the collaborative spirit that makes this field so dynamic.<br><br>Are you ready to transform your perspective on healthcare education? Don’t miss out on this engaging discussion, and be sure to subscribe, share, and leave a review!

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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. Do you plan to design a new Sim Center? Expand your existing Simulation Center or Simulation Program? Just give Innovative Sim Solutions experts a call. We are a team of simulation subject matter experts and consultants with over 50 years of experience designing simulation centers and programs. We are here to help you save time and money. Innovative Sim Solutions is your one-stop shop for all your simulation needs. Welcome to The Sim Cafe, a podcast produced by the team at Innovative Sim Solutions, edited by Shelly Houser. 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:

Welcome to another episode of The Sim Cafe. Welcome, Jerrod, thanks for being on, and welcome Erin, Bennett from New Zealand. Why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?

Erin Carn-Bennett:

Thanks, Deb, and thank you so much for inviting me to come on to The Sim Cafe. I feel really honored to be with you both today and with your listeners. So my name's Erin, as Deb's alluded to, so I'm in Auckland, new Zealand, and I am a nurse educator with the Douglas Starship Simulation Program, which is in Starship. Child Health is the only pediatric only hospital in the country and we work on a grant that we receive from the Douglas Charitable Trust and we sort of service the entire hospital that we work in. But we also go out and do a lot of outreach throughout the country as well to help people set up simulation programs and pediatrics across New Zealand, and my background is in pediatric emergency nursing. So I was a new graduate there in 2007 and I worked my way up and became a charge nurse in that area and then I went and worked in Rotorua Taupo, which is sort of in the central North Island of New Zealand, of the North Island of New Zealand, for a little while and I was a nurse unit manager down there for the inpatient ward and community.

Erin Carn-Bennett:

I've got my master's and clinical prescribing and, yeah, I also work with healthy simulation. com, so I'm a writer and content creator with them and I've been doing that for a couple of years, which I absolutely love as well. Yeah, and then we have our own podcast too sim nurse nz and um. I also help to set IPSS , the podcast, and I'm pretty involved IPSS , which is the International Pediatric Simulation Society, and I'm serving a term on the board at the moment with them. So, yeah, that's pretty much me in a nutshell.

Jerrod Jeffries:

You cover all avenues there. Really that's full scope.

Erin Carn-Bennett:

Wow.

Jerrod Jeffries:

I really don't know how you have all the time, but I'm certainly impressed. Wow, I really don't know how you have all the time, but I'm certainly impressed. I want to also dig into a little bit about IPSS if you don't mind, starting absolutely from your involvement and also the board but can we talk a little bit about the society and what purpose, mission, you know, kind of regional coverage it takes and so on for sure.

Erin Carn-Bennett:

So IPSS is quite a small society because it's very specialized right in kind of neonatal and pediatric simulation.

Erin Carn-Bennett:

It's very internationally based and the mission is pretty much for everyone within this kind of very small segment of simulation to be able to share resources, and we have a lot of drive to get resources into low and middle income countries as well. So we are very passionate about that and I really love going to IPSSW, which is the annual conference. It's just it's a really lovely community family feel because there's only you know, sort of often two to three hundred people there and there's some really big names there of simulation that come and attend that conference, and because it's so small and intimate and you get to actually go and have conversations with these people and be in quite small rooms and ask really curious questions and things. It's just such a fantastic society to be involved with. Some of the team members that started our program here in Auckland, new Zealand, were very involved in the setup of IPSS and so, yeah, as a team we've just sort of stayed on and become very involved in the society and we're very passionate about it as well.

Deb Tauber:

Thank you so much for all you're doing with that work and I appreciate hearing a little bit about the history of it.

Erin Carn-Bennett:

Thank you. We're small, so it's not without challenges, you know, but we are extremely passionate and determined, To your point.

Jerrod Jeffries:

it's so much more intimate on the some, on some of the smaller side. You know, looking at them across. Unfortunately I haven't anything done in new zealand yet, but it's, you know, looking at the us, even to Europe, the size in t the Americas is usually so much larger and you know there's benefits, but there's also drawbacks to that size and in the same same way, to those within europe.

Jerrod Jeffries:

it's maybe a little smaller and you get this intimate and more, build that relationship a lot more, and I can only imagine what it's like down there as well.

Deb Tauber:

So yeah, yeah. Now Erin, how did you actually get into simulation itself? I see how you got into PEDS. I've followed that one.

Erin Carn-Bennett:

So I really grew up with the simulation program here.

Erin Carn-Bennett:

So when I started my time as a new graduate nurse in the Children's Emergency Department in Starship Hospital, the simulation program was just starting really, and the people who founded it here Mike Shepard, Trish Wood they became quite involved with Boston Children's Hospital and Peter Weinstock and things, and so they sort of brought their CRM training program through into the hospital and got a network started and started doing the training here. So I really grew up with the program and got to really experience it. And as my time went on as a charge nurse, I was struggling more and more with the challenges of being in hospital management. And I still to this day, kind of really remember the day that I had my final charge nurse shift in the ED and we had a team on and we had a child that came in in a shockable arrest and there was a group of much younger nurses in the room. I was the senior nurse and these nurses were just so slick and there was three shocks delivered to the patient and you know, rosc was gained and and it was just like everyone was just this highly effective team and that is just such a low frequency event in pediatrics and I just I was a wreck afterwards. I was like shaking like a leaf and these girls were all like high-fiving each other and it was just phenomenal and it was just like wow, we've trained for this in simulation and got a really good outcome for this patient and it was just really mind blowing and I was really left with the profoundness of it and I've always really loved teaching and educating and mentoring and coaching people and, yeah, I ended up getting pretty burnt out in hospital management, to be honest, and the first thing that I thought was you know, when I really thought about what do I actually want to do?

Erin Carn-Bennett:

It was like, oh my gosh, I want to go and do simulation. Thing that I thought was you know, when I really thought about what do I actually want to do, it was like, oh my gosh, I want to go and do simulation. And I was just extremely fortunate that, within a couple of weeks of me being like I need to leave this job and go back to Auckland, that a post came up in that exact role and so I was able to apply and was successful and I just knew that this job was not going to come up again. So it was just really a series of fortunate events that I'm incredibly grateful for, to be fair, and I started in simulation in 2019. So you know, I'm still fairly early in my simulation career really, but, yeah, it's just been the best decision that I've made, really, I think, in my career. To be honest.

Deb Tauber:

Good, Now do you have a favorite or most impactful simulation story?

Erin Carn-Bennett:

I do so and this story is kind of like actually from fairly early in my debriefing career.

Erin Carn-Bennett:

I love debriefing, it's one of my most favorite things to do, and I was. I've probably been debriefing for maybe a year, maybe two years, so I was still pretty pretty early on in my journey and I was debriefing in an area that I have never worked in and I don't have any clinical expertise in whatsoever. But I was debriefing a senior nurse around her leadership skills in a resuscitation and I really formed this connection with her and it was kind of like this charge nurse to charge nurse type situation and it was just so amazing to really feel the connection of everyone in the room come together and to talk about how she had led this team. And then we sort of did a bit of a flip around and we sort of talked about when things haven't gone so well with leadership and it meant that some of the more junior nurses in the room felt really safe to be vulnerable about some of these things that have been happening in their department around leadership in multiple different circumstances and it was just so powerful to be able to hear this perspective brought forward with a charge nurse present in the room as well, and it was just kind of like this real I don't know I call it my nirvana debriefing moment where it was just I don't know. I've been chasing it ever since.

Erin Carn-Bennett:

I mean, had some great debriefs since, but not quite to that same standard, but yeah, it was just. It was this incredibly profound moment for me and actually for everyone in that room really, and it was through everyone being able to share together. So, yeah, I often still, even now, reflect back on that debrief. Yeah, Right.

Deb Tauber:

I think that there's special cases that you. They just trigger a memory. In fact, when you were sharing the story about the pediatric code on the floor, I remembered being in a situation very similar the resuscitation with him. And we were able to resuscitate him but it turned out that his brother had pushed him in. So I mean the thinking about that whole story. It was everybody who had taught PALS. We were the ones who were doing the resuscitation, so it just went smooth and, just like you said, the high five afterward because you knew you did. You did something that you'd learned in simulation and made a difference.

Erin Carn-Bennett:

Yeah, yeah, and I think that's the thing right is we don't always win in resuscitation, but it's about we have to overcome so much to be able to perform in these moments. You know, mentally, physically, all the things right. And if we have those really ingrained teamwork skills and we've practiced and we've practiced, that's when I think it really starts to come together in those really really challenging circumstances.

Deb Tauber:

Right, right Now. Let's talk a little bit about Sim to Lead. I know that you're active with that. I'd like to learn more. We'd like to learn a little bit about Sim to Lead. I know that you're active with that. I'd like to learn more. We'd like to learn a little bit more about that, thank you.

Erin Carn-Bennett:

So Sim to Lead is a course that Dr Kang-Hee Gan and I have created over the last kind of three years within our program and we've been incredibly fortunate through all of the exposure and training and constant training that we've had and access to experts that trust us to actually not guinea pig, but you know to roll these things out and to refine them and to practice them and to learn as we go as well. So sim to lead is a course that we created essentially because we wanted people to feel prepared to be leaders of critical events or resuscitations, and we are essentially training to have a medical event manager and a nursing co-leader in resuscitations, for them to work together and to have kind of skills in leadership, teamwork and also to overcome mental challenges and things as well. So things like you know, when you become really overwhelmed and you just can't think mentally, physically, how do you overcome that to then be able to run an effective resuscitation? And you know, I think across the globe we are really facing challenges of staff being pushed to have to lead these events and things much sooner than they would have in the past because of the attrition of staff and things. So how do we prepare people to feel like they are confident and have the skills to be able to do that.

Erin Carn-Bennett:

So that's essentially what Sim2Lead is, and it's a high fidelity simulation course, but there are coaches who are training these leaders in side by side coaching at the same time, and we've now got it to a point where we're really happy with it. We're actually about to submit our first paper about it, which is really exciting. It will be my first publication certainly not Kang's, but definitely mine. So, yeah, it's been just such a phenomenal experience and to also work in a team who have also just been incredibly supportive and really enabled this to happen too, and we're just now at the point where we're starting to train more facilitators as well, uh, so is it a class that you go to and attend?

Deb Tauber:

so I understand it's for helping leaders to learn how to lead.

Erin Carn-Bennett:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so we do. It's a four-hour course, so they have like a one hour at the start of kind of. We have a segment in there which we refer to as the campfire, which is just like a really connecting experience of just conversations around people's experiences, what they want to learn, where they're at, where they've been, can get some really amazing stories and skills shared that people actually are already using, that you don't know about, and then we sort of teach them. I guess the kind of foundation of it was. I remember saying to Kang like I feel like it's like a chess board, like we need to show them where to put their counters on the chessboard, Like what's the strategy, what are the reliable things that we can teach people every time that they can lean on in these really challenging situations that they have to lead in.

Erin Carn-Bennett:

So that's kind of been the foundation of the course. They have the didactic for an hour at the start which we try to really embody. We're not the experts, we are here to learn as well and we're really trying to just keep the hierarchy really flat and really sharing as well, and then from there we go into. We're still trying to refine it, but we currently do four simulation scenarios one tabletop, then three in-situ scenarios with a pediatric mannequin where at the moment we're still umming and ahhing as to whether we cut that down to three or not. So it's constantly being revised and refined. You should say yeah.

Deb Tauber:

Very, very cool, so thanks for sharing that. Jared, do you have any questions about?

Jerrod Jeffries:

yeah, I mean it sounds more like you're creating the science or kind of a process that's with it, but then there's always art on top and you know, as, as the old saying goes, you know you've seen one simulation site, you've seen one, and, but there are similarities and patterns you can apply to others. But it sounds like you're iterating, based off, you know, the feedback you're getting, which is great, and I love to see that it's Symtolead is growing.

Erin Carn-Bennett:

And is that just in New Zealand, or is that across, you know?

Jerrod Jeffries:

Australia or other places as well?

Erin Carn-Bennett:

Yeah, so, yeah, it's just within our hospital at the moment. But yeah, we have had interest. There has been a pediatric center in the States that was interested and they kind of observe the simulations and be on teams and things and be involved in the conversations and things, and also we included them in the debrief as well. So that was quite an interesting experience. Yeah, yeah, so not too sure where it'll head in the future, but we're just kind of rolling with it and we've got our program within the ED, which is, you know, pretty solid at the moment. I think we're running three or four courses there this year. We also run it for the NICU as well. I think we did that a couple of times last year. We did, I think, close to 10 courses of it last year. So, yeah, we're just rolling with. However it pans out. Really, we're building the airplane while we fly it, I guess you could say.

Deb Tauber:

Thank you.

Jerrod Jeffries:

I think the best ones always do. You got to launch, you got to go, you got to launch.

Deb Tauber:

Absolutely so, Erin. Let's talk a little bit about the podcast. You have a podcast, obviously, Jerrod, and I have a podcast, and why don't you tell us a little bit about how you started it and kind of what some of your favorite things have been since you've been on this journey?

Erin Carn-Bennett:

Yeah, I mean, it's been such a huge learning experience and there's been so many skills that I've learned about. One of my best friends from high school works in radio. She's quite a famous radio host in New Zealand and so she kind of helped to get me in touch with some people to help with some stuff to get going, because she knew people who were kind of podcast producers for some of the top teams in the country here and things like that. So we were really lucky to have some really good mentorship from the start to get going and things and the learning continues. But, yeah, in terms of guests, it's been phenomenal.

Erin Carn-Bennett:

Our kind of ethos with sim nurse NZ is uh, we, our morning ritual as a team is that we all sit and we have coffee and there's myself, alison Cartwright and Marie Collinson who are the three nurse educators for the Douglas Starship Simulation Program and we were just finding we were having these morning coffee conversations and solving the world's problems and we were like man, we should be recording this stuff. It's pretty cool. And so, yeah, we, in the classic new zealand way we were then on a team fishing trip and we kind of dropped in that, hey, you know how we're building this new sim center. Maybe we could have like a podcast suite in there. And we were kind of like joking around with our big bosses and they were like you can have a podcast if you want. So then that kind of just snowballed from there. But essentially the ethos is that we wanted to capture these coffee style conversations of it just being really casual, which is sort of the New Zealand way to be fair, but just allowing the magic to kind of happen, and not too rigid, and so we just kind of went with that.

Erin Carn-Bennett:

We were really blown away by. We'd reached out to a number of pretty big heavy hitters in the simulation community and we're pretty early in the game here and everyone just kind of came on board and was really really giving. We've had some amazing guests and it's it's really interesting. I'm not sure if you find it as well, but, um, you kind of forget you're in recording a podcast and yeah, it just kind of becomes this natural conversation and it's really fun, especially with the three of us. We're all a bit, we're all slightly crazy, so it gets a little, a little wild at times. But yeah, we'd like to make it fun, we like to make jokes and we learn so much, and so much of what we've learned on the podcast actually then permeates through into our simulation program as well. So it's very much professional development for us actually to honest, I couldn't agree, I could not agree more.

Deb Tauber:

I can't tell you the amount of gifts that our guests have given us with their time and their talent and their stories, and I just feel so, so fortunate. To have had the opportunity and then, you know, to get Jared to join made it even more exciting and fun.

Erin Carn-Bennett:

Yeah, thank you, yeah. And I think on top of that is then you meet in person.

Jerrod Jeffries:

Of course, most podcasts are virtual these days and you know you connect with them at a large conference, wherever it is in the world, or you hear a story of two other people connecting through listening to someone else's pod. You know being a guest on. That to me is just absolutely incredible when you hear a story of a listener and then a guest say oh, I started doing this and you were the catalyst, or you know because it was disseminated through podcasts.

Jerrod Jeffries:

you're able to then connect and that just really really warms me. But a lot of benefits, that's for sure.

Deb Tauber:

Absolutely. I think. The other thing that I've found most recently is more and more people are asking to be interviewed because it takes so long to get your information out there if you're going to be peer reviewed and published. By the time you get published, it's old news, it's old information. It's been just a great way to disseminate information and I think we've got close to 150 episodes.

Erin Carn-Bennett:

Wow, it's so impressive.

Deb Tauber:

Well, I think the fun thing is if you go to my website, innovativesimsolutions. com, you can type a person's name in the podcast area and their podcast will pop up if they've done an interview.

Erin Carn-Bennett:

Yeah, it's great, isn't it?

Erin Carn-Bennett:

It's all that stuff. That is incredibly helpful. And you know, we started the SimNurseNZ podcast and we were actually in Lisbon in Portugal for the IPSSW in, I must say, 2023. And then we all of a sudden were being approached. We had some little business cards we were giving out and things, and then I think I joined yeah, that was that was the conference that I, it was announced I was joining the board and so then conversations were happening.

Erin Carn-Bennett:

I had people come over and they're like oh, you have a podcast, we want a podcast, let's do, let's make one. And so it just kind of one podcast is now led into two podcasts and it's been cool to then now mentor. You're watching people go through that process of I'm sure you both remember, when you first start releasing podcasts and things, that kind of like anxiety of putting things out into the internet and out into the universe, and so coaching and mentoring another group of people to go through that was really fascinating as well, and there's just so many ways to do it as well. And you speak to other people like I spoke to Victoria Brazel and David Shablack and you know they'll share with you how they do things and then you're like, oh, wow, like there's just there's so many ways that you can produce a podcast and it's really, really fascinating and there's so many skills that you can learn that go alongside it as well.

Deb Tauber:

Right, yeah, David and William have been a lot of help to us. Yeah, appreciated their support and we are here to support you as well. I'm excited for you on this podcast journey across the world and the other side of the world. Now, do you have any final words you'd like to leave our listeners?

Erin Carn-Bennett:

with. I think if you are in simulation and you aren't part of an organization, I think it's a really good thing to do. And that's not necessarily IPCS or SSIH or anything really I mean those are wonderful organizations for sure. But I think joining a simulation organization and finding your tribe and just really getting involved, you know, in a special interest group or a committee or something, is so beneficial. You meet so many wonderful, amazing human beings. You get access to a lot of incredible resources and things.

Erin Carn-Bennett:

If you're going to a conference, just go and talk to people. That's, I mean I still I know I podcast and whatnot. That's still something I do struggle with a bit is just be brave and go over and talk to people. Or go and have lunch with you know, move around different tables and go to the welcome drinks and just go and say hi. And it's just really amazing when you start to ask questions of people of where they're from and what they've done. And the simulation community is so wonderful. And, yeah, I just I would love for you to come and listen to our podcast as well if you would like to. And uh, yeah, obviously Sim Cafe as well wonderful podcast. So that's probably my final words, really, I guess thank you, Jerro jared.

Deb Tauber:

You have any questions or anything?

Jerrod Jeffries:

no, I I appreciate you being on Erin. It's great to get a perspective from the other side of the world, but also to realize the challenges and what we're going through. And the connections you can make are, of course, global and hopefully it makes the world a little bit smaller, being able to connect and share your voice. So thank you.

Deb Tauber:

Yeah, thank you so much, yep, all right, well, with that, happy simulating.

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