Who Gets To Lead In Clinical Simulation with Cheryl Camacho & Dawn Swiderski

Leadership in healthcare simulation doesn’t always come with a title or a roadmap. One day you’re an educator or clinician, and the next day you’re responsible for staffing, budgets, accreditation prep, outcomes, and the long list of “Can you also…?” requests that land on a simulation program. We sit down with two leaders who have lived that reality and built thriving programs anyway: Dawn Swiderski, Associate Vice President of Simulation Services at the Carolina Simulation Center at Atrium Health (now Advocate Health), and Cheryl Camacho, Director of Simulation and Outreach at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

We dig into the shift from the SSH Directors Section to the Simulation Program Leadership Section and why that change is more than a rebrand. It’s a move toward inclusion for people leading without the “director” label, whether you’re new to simulation, stepping into management unexpectedly, or guiding a program through influence instead of authority. Dawn and Cheryl share how they listen to member feedback and turn it into practical support that actually matches what leaders need in the moment.

You’ll also get a clear tour of what’s available through SimConnect: quarterly webinars, section meetings, and the highly popular couch conversations where members bring burning questions like simulation ROI, accreditation, costing models, policies, staffing allocation, and how to prove value with metrics and KPIs (including examples like Power BI). We talk about the underused SimConnect library filled with templates, forms, job descriptions, and recorded sessions that help you move faster, especially if you’re tired of reinventing the wheel.

If you lead any part of clinical simulation education, patient safety simulation, or simulation operations, this one is built for you. Subscribe, share it with a simulation colleague, and leave a review with the leadership topic you want tackled next.

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Transcript

Disclaimer And Sim Cafe Welcome

Disclaimer/ intro 0:00

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. 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 0:51

Welcome to another episode of the Sim Cafe. Thank you so much for being here. Today we have Jared, Dawn Swiderski, and Cheryl Camacho. So, Dawn, why don't you lead us off and tell us a little bit about yourself?

Dawn Swiderski 1:05

Sure. So I'm Dawn Swiderski. I'm the Associate Vice President of Simulation Services for Carolina Simulation Center and Atrium Health, which is now a part of Advocate Health. I've been with Carolina Simulation Center since inception, and we were just talking about this earlier with my leadership team. Next year will be our 20th anniversary. That's so exciting to think about. I can't believe we've been doing this for 20 years. I'm a nurse by background. I've been with the same organization in June. It will be 30 years. So I started out as a trauma-intensive care nurse, got into education, and was the educator for that unit, and then had this amazing opportunity to start a simulation center from inception. And so over the past almost 19 years, I've been super excited about the growth and expansion and who we serve, and that I have an amazing team. And then I've been very active in the Society for Simulation and Healthcare for many, many years. And that's what we're here to talk a little bit about today. But I would love for my colleague and partner in crime, Cheryl, to introduce herself.

Cheryl Camacho 2:14

Good afternoon. My name is Cheryl Camacho. I'm the director of our simulation and outreach program here at Nationwide Children's Hospital. Also, for a very short limited time, I'm the interim director of our patient safety team and our organization as well. I started up my simulation career at Johns Hopkins. I was a pre-hospital paramedic and I met one of the educators at that organization. And she said, I have a great job for you. And I started my career out in the simulation center, drank the Kool-Aid, and evolved in my role in the simulation center as a pediatric educator, and then had moved up the ranks into director. From there, in 2019, I had the fabulous conversation with my mentor that says, We have no additional role for you. You can continue staying director, but I know that you want to grow and advance in your career. Like Dawn, I had the opportunity to come to Nationwide Children's. They were just broke ground on a brand new simulation center and had blueprints that were still wet, and was able to build the simulation center, the space, the equipment, supplies, and rooms from ground zero, and then growing the team as well, all the way up to accreditation, which I'm very proud of. And here we are today, looking forward to talking more about our simulation leadership program section and sharing all the knowledge behind that.

Jerrod Jeffries 3:30

I didn't know that, Cheryl. That's what an opportunity from ground zero. And how long from from there then until now, how many years is that?

Cheryl Camacho 3:38

So I've been here seven years.

Jerrod Jeffries 3:40

Okay. Wow. And then already accredited, too. That's I mean, you you hit the ground running.

Cheryl Camacho 3:45

I have met some wonderful people that have helped me understand the uh accreditation as in Dawn, but many people have helped me and pushed us along the way.

Why The Section Changed Its Name

Deb Tauber 3:54

Yeah, Dawn is certainly a bright light in simulation. Uh I I can't um say enough wonderful things about her. So thanks, Dawn. Thanks, Cheryl. Thanks for being on today. Let's talk a little bit about the director's section that is now the simulation program leadership section. And what group is and what you guys do. Certainly.

Webinars Library And Member Resources

Dawn Swiderski 4:17

So the director's section's been in existence for many years, and Cheryl and I were both very active members and uh moved up in that section and volunteered our time to have multiple different roles. I was the education lead for a while, and this was under the leadership of Jim Cook and Dr. Tori Lack. And from that point, uh Cheryl decided that she would like to take on a more advanced leadership role and became the chair. And I continued to help support her. And then last year, was it last year? All these years they all blend together. She made a pact with me, like Pinky sweared, that if I ran for the chair, that she would be the vice chair. And so we were fortunate enough uh to be elected to be in those roles. And we work with Dana Downing from Boston Children's and also Jason Kohlsman as part of Consulman as part of our leadership team. And so we've been very fortunate to have lots of support along the way. But as we were uh leading this very active section for SSH, we thought how could we grow and expand it to be more inclusive? Understanding that not everyone has a title as a director. I don't, and many others don't as well. So, in order to be more inclusive for people that had formal leadership roles and informal leadership roles, we brought um this to the body at IMSH a couple years ago and asked for their input on changing the name and asked for their input on different name choices. And then we brought it back to the section to vote on those name choices. Uh, unbeknownst to us, we uh couldn't do that all by ourselves. So we had to put a proposal before the SSH board and it was accepted. And part of the reason we uh we decided to be more inclusive is we had many people that we ran into in the simulation community at IMSH or other areas that said, I hear that y'all are doing amazing things, but I didn't join because I'm not a director. And we wanted to make sure that they felt included in any type of resources and support for leadership in simulation. Again, recognizing it can be formal or informal. So that was our journey. We put it before the board, it got approved. We officially became the simulation program leadership section last year on SimConnect. It actually has still in parentheses formally the director's section, but because we wanted to make sure people connected the dots. But we have a super active group and lots of great resources. Talk a little bit about some of the resources we have for people that are part of our section, Cheryl.

Cheryl Camacho 7:07

Sure. So one of the big things that I'm very proud of is as we started growing more, Tori and James had created a great foundation for us and had helped mentor. I think Don and I both, since we were together on that aspect and under their leadership, but we wanted to do something more. Um and we kept hearing people had a ton of topics and had a lot of wants instead of us popping on a call and helping them. It was let's create a more formalized approach. So once a quarter we have a webinar, and the topics are oversaw by Dana Downing and it's facilitated by Dana. And then we also have couch conversations, and that's the area that I lead and definitely passionate about. And you've seen this trend throughout SSH and the SimConnect that many others are starting to take that bright nugget and component and taking it into their section six and ability groups. Just because it's been so popular, it's an opportunity for I would say the end learner, but the end users to have the chance to say, hey, I have these questions, I have this burning topic, there's trends in healthcare, trends in simulation. I need somebody to talk about it and let's talk about and vet these opportunities. And then can I brainstorm with you? And can someone share their expertise? And it's very informal, it's an hour long. We pull our topics from Simp Connect, we pull our topics from social media as well, and then people email us and then we bring those as agenda topics and we just start having conversations. There is a group of subject matter expert simulationists that are invited every single time that we have a couch conversation to bring their expertise to this group because a lot of us come from different backgrounds. So somebody is always on the line that has that experience, and we just have those informal conversations. And then if we need to, we are able to reconnect offline and provide tools and tips and resources. The last one that I think is an underutilized opportunity is on SimConnect as our library. We have a very robust library on SimConnect that starts with job descriptions, costing documents, staff allocation, a lot of articles on leadership as well. That I think when people ask the question, it's always nice to help remind them that, hey, go to the library and see what your resources are, and then come back because many times there's a previous webinar that Dana has brought up about this topic. There's a previous article or conversation so that people can use that as a resource as well.

Deb Tauber 9:29

It's good to know.

Jerrod Jeffries 9:30

And I feel like there's a recurrent theme for both of you, and that's the you both listen to feedback and apply that really well. Because Don, with your example of you know the inclusivity and the director's piece, and then and then she'll also receiving the emails and then you know, guiding letting those questions guide you or the agenda for for the meetings. I think that you're a group that listens and actually pays attention to the people that are there.

Dawn Swiderski 9:52

Definitely. A few years ago when we started the couch conversations, and we actually borrowed the idea from um an IMSH, gosh, it was probably five, six years ago where they actually had a couch. And it was like 15-minute topics, like informal, where people could just come ask questions. And so I think having the ability to bring people together and problem solve uh things that folks are experiencing no matter where they are in their leadership journey. But at the very beginning, we asked these simulation leaders who have been in the role for a while, what do they wish that they would have known or had or had a resource or or been connected to when they first started? So it started from that. So it's a support group. Like, you know, we all come together and we're like, we're simulation leaders. My name's Dawn. Anyway, and the topics that come up are super important. And this way we can connect folks together that have more experience in an area, or we can, like uh Cheryl said, we direct them to the library. Dana Downing's actually been instrumental in a lot of this because she's done some amazing work. Her team just presented for our educational webinar a little bit earlier today, and it was all about what metrics they're tracking to demonstrate their uh key performance indicators and how they were using Power BI. And so the one thing in the simulation world that I think all of us can speak to is how generous the simulation community is and sharing. And so over time, we have had folks who have been, we've been able to support their needs by sharing some work that someone else has already done, and they don't have to reinvent the wheel. They'll just adapt it for their particular organization. And so we do a real-time needs assessment every um IMSH during our section meeting. We did one last year, which is how the topics came up for this year's quarterly webinar, educational webinars. And then we're constantly asking the members of the group what else we could do for them. Um, and then we have a lot of great friends in the simulation community, and then we reach out to them and voluntole them to uh help share their knowledge uh with the rest of the community. And another subcommittee that we have is forms and templates. And so there are consistent forms that people are looking for and templates. Some align with people's accreditation journey, others are just I'm brand new in simulation and I'm a leader, and someone said go, and I don't even know where to start with policies and procedures or other things. So that's all in the library as well. And we asked this last time at IMSH in our real-time needs assessment what forms or templates do people need, and which ones would they be willing to share? So I think we have a ton of resources for members of this section, and we encourage anyone to join. I know we've connected with Deb and her new to simulation affinity group and aligning mentor and mentee possibilities there, but also there are people new to simulation that day one, they're in a leadership role. That was my journey. I was hired as an educator and they said, Oh, um, just kidding, now you're a leader. And so I could have used all the resources that this section um uh shares with the simulation community when I first started. So really it's going back to uh you know many years ago and remembering what it felt like and putting together, you know, a vast array of things that are gonna help other leaders in the simulation community.

Deb Tauber 13:30

Don, when you guys talk about the couch conversations, how do those how do those go? Do you how do you set them up?

Dawn Swiderski 13:38

We all go to Cheryl's house and we sit on our couch. Just kidding. Cheryl's leading that. Why don't you tell us what happens?

Cheryl Camacho 13:45

Sure. So we host them. Um they are once a quarter, and we have agreed that it can be PRN as needed. So if we need something else sooner, or there's a ton of topics that are coming in and we can't handle them, you know, in a one-hour time frame, we can add lib to another one. And I think I mentioned earlier, they're kind of like an impromptu. So we schedule an event, say one o'clock on a Tuesday, we all meet. I wish it was at my house because it would be a whole lot more comfier. But we join in and I open the group of like, hey, you know, welcome. I would love to have the Vegas rules, but it doesn't happen. We are recording the session for people to watch this at a later time. And that's where I pull, all right. On SimConnect, we've seen these trends of questions. And let's start talking about the ROI and simulation. And then Dawn or I or someone else in the group will say, Hey, have you seen this article or have you watched this webinar? And even though those people might not be on, we still all can benefit from those. So we answer those questions, or we say, Hey, I have, you know, Lynn or Renee or someone else on the call. I noticed that you had a question. Do you still have that question? A, and if so, let's answer that. Or B, if you don't have that question, can you share what resources or answers that you received with everybody else that is watching at a later date or current today that you can knowledge share with us? At the end, we asked for different topics for the next time. Hey, maybe we table some things. In addition, that's how Dana gets some of her opportunities to do some of her webinars at a much larger scale. One of the things that I think Dawn didn't mention, but I give huge kudos to her as well, is all of our couch conversations, all of our webinars, all of our IMSH presentations align with the SSH's mission and vision and values, which support our advanced certifications of CHSE, CHSOS. They encourage that collaborative mindset and growth development, which is another reason why we moved away from the director section title. And even we support the mentee mentor program from our aspect. That's how I have the best mentees at SSH this time around. So just as a blurb and a side note. But we support all of their mission and vision and values in some way and touch them in some sort of aspect on all of our opportunities of growth and opportunities to share that knowledge throughout the system.

Dawn Swiderski 16:14

So certain topics will pop up uh in the social media, like there's a bunch of simulationist Facebook groups. And so we see similarities in those topics as well as the ones on SimConnect. And what we found is at times in SimConnect, someone will put a topic that probably has been asked throughout the years many times. And so no one responds. And so we want to keep revisiting those topics for maybe newer leaders or people who haven't experienced that before. So both Cheryl and I watch SimConnect, not just the STEM program leadership section, but all of the groups that we're a part of and also the social media uh groups that we're a part of. And so just the other day, I forwarded her an email from another group that was asking about uh a costing model. They're uh expanding their simulation program outside of their primary users and they want to know, you know, contracts and legal and pricing. And so we'll make sure that we uh reach in, uh reach out to the uh the team that's a part of this group that are experts in this space, and the ones that we know that live in a simulation program like that, we'll make sure that they're on as well. And so I like that we're revisiting topics that uh have been brought up before and that people could be anywhere in their in their leadership journey. I mean, there's been a lot of conversation around accreditation. There's been a lot of conversation around return on value. Um, the other piece is because we sit in other sections, SIGs and affinity groups, we connect the dots there. So uh if there's something in the value-based simulation affinity group, we bring that to um the SIM program leadership section and we ask members of these other groups to come and present. So then this way it's now a webinar that can be used for both groups as well. So uh I think we're we're really good connectors in that space. And then uh sharing of resources. And I like the fact that it's informal for the most part. So people feel comfortable. I don't know about you, Deb, but when you started in your simulation career, there's some folks that, you know, you heard their names all the time. Oh, one of them might be related to someone, Pamela Jeffries. And so we uh, you know, I don't know if you were nervous to like reach out to her to get some, you know, help and resources. So we make sure we level the playing field in any of our um couch conversations. Doesn't matter, we've all been there, we're all figuring it out together, we're all still learning together. And so we we keep it as informal in that space as possible. And the attendees are chiming in as well with what their experience is in that particular topic area. And I really like that. That's probably one of my favorite things.

Jerrod Jeffries 19:02

And then even afterwards, right, all this is accessible continuously through SimConnect. So as Cheryl, I think it was you mentioning you you record, and then you know, whenever you want to find it, you can go retrieve it at your own time and asynchronously.

Dawn Swiderski 19:14

Absolutely. I think the challenge in um the simulation community is from international perspective and time zones, right? Finding a time that would work for these that um, you know, everyone could be at might require someone to be up in the middle of the night, those types of things. So having the resources available afterwards that people can be pointed to when we get questions on SimConnect. Uh, Cheryl is much better at this than I am, but she'll go in and point them like we have this on this date. We've done a webinar, and also sharing of information that other groups have done and other programs have done so people can learn from them as well. So I really like that aspect of what we're doing.

Deb Tauber 19:55

Yeah. You guys have done a lot. How many webinars do you have in total in the library so far?

Dawn Swiderski 20:01

Oh, I have no idea. We're trying to do four a year right now. We do four a year of the educational webinars, four of year of the couch conversations, and four a year of the uh leadership section meetings.

Deb Tauber 20:16

Okay. And how many members are in the group?

Dawn Swiderski 20:19

I think last time, did you look 600 and something?

Cheryl Camacho 20:23

So, as a disclaimer, we originally before we went to the new Sim Connect, we had over 900 members. And now that we have gone to the new version of the Sim Connect, I believe some people have dropped off and some people are rejoining, but we're a little over 600.

How To Join SimConnect And Get Involved

Deb Tauber 20:40

Now, why don't you tell our listeners how they would get to this and be able to join the group?

Dawn Swiderski 20:45

Yeah, Don. Yeah, that's a great question. There is a certain pathway in SimConnect that you can use to join any of the groups without being able to do a visual demonstration. It's kind of hard to explain. But I will say that one of the Society for Simulation and Healthcare members made it a lot easier for individuals and made a short recorded video, which is also in our library and other areas and like affinity groups that anyone could get to because they don't have to be a member of SSH for. And it walks you through step by step on which button to push and what screen to go to next. So that would be my suggestion is to follow that short video for any groups that you want to join. It's not as easy as it used to be. And so I think that's where we saw some drop-off is just learning to navigate SimConnect. And we've actually done a webinar on how to navigate SimConnect a couple years ago when it first switched over.

Deb Tauber 21:47

Well, I think this is wonderful information. And do you guys have anything that you'd like to leave our listeners with? And when is your next webinar?

Dawn Swiderski 21:57

Of course you've got this one.

Cheryl Camacho 21:58

I do, the next Couch Connection. The couch conversation is June 16th at 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. And right following that is our leadership section meeting, which is July 20th from one to two o'clock Eastern Standard Time. So June, July. And then we have them on Sim Connect there all the way throughout. Cause if you guys are like a planner like I am, we like to have our life planned out and people putting it on their calendar. So we have them planned out. And then we look forward to actually face-to-face connections at IMSH.

Dawn Swiderski 22:30

And I would like to say, I would love to do more connection with your affinity group, Deb. I think there's so much opportunity and there's so much experience in the uh SIM program leadership section that I believe the new to simulation affinity group members would really benefit from. And I know that there's the Ascend mentorship program, but not everyone is in Ascend. And I don't want folks to miss out some on some potential great collaboration. And so I'm hoping we're going to do a little bit more together as the year goes on. Um, inviting your uh if if your folks are members of SSH, then they can come, of course, to the webinars. Um, I think sometimes we um use different Zoom links so that could really be open to anyone. And so uh I think uh that's a a great opportunity uh to grow the next generation of leaders.

Deb Tauber 23:25

Thanks. Jared, do you have any questions for them?

Jerrod Jeffries 23:28

No, I I love this resource. I think it's valuable and and really hope that people take advantage of it. I mean, as yeah, I just I just really hope people leverage it. So thank you so much for your time, Cheryl and Don. Appreciate it.

Deb Tauber 23:39

Absolutely. Thank you. And I hope our listeners gained some information today and can get involved. They can reach out to us anytime.

Jerrod Jeffries 23:48

How can they contact you?

Dawn Swiderski 23:49

I'm sorry.

Jerrod Jeffries 23:50

How can our listeners contact you both?

Dawn Swiderski 23:52

They can uh contact us via email if you put in Carolina Simulation Center on Meet Our Staff. My page, my face shows up, and there's my email and contact information. Um, will probably be the easiest way to get a hold of me.

Cheryl Camacho 24:07

Also, on just another plug for SimConnect. If you go on members, you're able to find any of our members that have had previous webinars or are lined up to do future webinars. You can reach out to them if you have questions. And then again, Don and I are there as well.

Deb Tauber 24:22

Thank you. Thank you for all your contributions and all the stuff you guys are doing. It's really makes a difference. And once you, you know, as you mentioned earlier, I think simulationists are among the most generous of uh people, you know, wanting to share and give and help.

Dawn Swiderski 24:39

I agree. I've met some of my best friends in this simulation world. Yes, and two of them are right here. Jerrod, you can be my best friend too if you want.

Jerrod Jeffries 24:47

Thanks, Doc.

Deb Tauber 24:49

All right. Thank you so much and happy simulating.

Disclaimer/ intro 24:59

Thanks for joining us here at The Sim Cafe. We hope you enjoyed. Visit us at www.innovative simsolutions.com. And be sure to hit that like and subscribe button so you never miss an episode. Innovative Sim Solutions is your one stop shop for your simulation needs. A turnkey solution.