Imagine you’re on a basketball team. The members of the team all practice individually with team members that play their respective positions, e.g. with other point guards or forwards. They never practice as an entire team until the actual game. Sounds crazy right? Yet, this is what we frequently do in healthcare. Perhaps the residents get together for a sim day, and there’s a nursing skills rodeo day, but rarely, if ever do we train together.

During the third year of my emergency medicine residency, I began to consider a career in academic medicine. I considered several fellowships, including Pediatric Emergency Medicine, Toxicology, and Critical Care. When I took a step back, and considered what I truly love; I love the look on a learner’s face when something clicks. I also feel very passionate about patient safety and I appreciate how simulation allows the safe practice of procedures and critical situations with no potential patient harm. I was also very fortunate to have several simulation mentors that inspired and guided me on my path towards becoming a simulation educator.

Simulation education is dependent upon the premise of suspension of disbelief. This is a contract with learners in which there is acknowledgment of the limitations and artificiality of simulation. Yet, this is not a pass for educators to shrink from every opportunity to make the simulation experience as realistic as possible. In the simulation field, realism is described as fidelity, i.e. a high-fidelity simulation has a high level of realism. Every time we ask a learner to pretend, we make it a little harder for them to truly engage in simulation exercise.