Center for Experiential Learning & Assessment
The mission of the Center for Experiential Learning and Assessment (CELA) will provide an educationally rich environment for training healthcare professionals to practice safe, effective and compassion clinical care. CELA is dedicated to the use of simulations to fulfill its mission. It is informed by the best practices of teaching and clinical practice and grounded in theory-based research. Integral to this mission, CELA will conduct rigorous research that extends our knowledge and practice of experiential learning and assessment by simulations.
Background
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine is committed to developing and disseminating processes and tools that will facilitate the appropriate generation, learning, and application of medical knowledge, skills and attitudes to improve clinical competence.
Effective clinical education will increasingly require innovative approaches and greater collaboration with the wider community. Patient safety, the reduction of medical error, and enhance healthcare quality have become major pubic policy issues. Simulation is a proven and effective tool for training, performance evaluation and research.
Vanderbilt has made a major commitment to simulation training.
Limitations of Real Patient Care as a Teaching Tool
The application of clinical knowledge and the development of skills to diagnose successfully and treat patients effectively require deliberate and meaningful practice. Opportunities to practice clinical management may be limited because many specific clinical problems occur infrequently and are usually complicated by confounding factors.
Traditionally, complex communication skills (e.g., doctor-patient interactions) are learned “on the fly” with little time for practice and feedback. Actual clinical crises are suboptimal learning opportunities because they are relatively rare, each event is unique, and improper treatment can have tragic consequences.
Societal pressures, including cost-containment and patient safety issues, will increasingly preclude the use of real patients, especially ill ones, in hands-on medical education and training.
Thus, the "see one, do one, teach one" model is no longer tenable. In its stead, simulation provides a unique opportunity to train clinical excellence more efficiently and effectively.
Why is Simulation so Valuable for Medical Education?
Simulation curricula can be specified and scheduled in advance when it makes the most sense in the continuum of training, rather leaving it to the chance occurrence of learning during everyday patient care. Current simulation technology is sufficiently realistic to be a surrogate for actual patient care.
Patient simulation provides the ability to repeatedly practice a wide range of clinical scenarios. Because simulated clinical scenarios are completely replicable and highly standardized, it is much easier to review and evaluate performance. Simulation experiences can be videotaped and reviewed by trainees to further facilitate learning and permit assessment of process and style as well as outcome.
The convenience of scheduled practice on specific clinical events permits effective and efficient team training. Lessons taught in a realistic simulation are retained better, due to the required active learning and focused concentration, the experience's emotional investment, and the direct association with the real world.
