This year, I got t
he chance to return to the Boise NLN simulation conference, hosted by Boise State University. This is my third time here. Added bonus: I was a presenter! Such an exciting opportunity. I presented the findings of my principle-based concept analysis of prebriefing, which I shared here.
I brought along some of my co-workers from the hospital, too. I was nervous they might not find anything interesting, but the program contained a variety of sessions and a few that applied to nursing residencies and other more general topics.
I was a bit nervous about my presentation, too. Mostly that no one would show up because… well a concept analysis?? How boring! OK! So that didn’t happen. Most of the room was full! Then I worried the topic would not be as interesting to them as it was to me. But luckily again! Most people were engaged, and during the break out/discussion session as I wandered the room, people were excited to think and discuss research ideas for prebriefing. Finally I had about a dozen folks who were interested in getting a copy of my slides and references! (click if you want to see them!). I was worried I’d go over on time, and I did cut it a bit too close (and went over by a few minutes), but the group participation was worth it.
I will admit I have been looking forward to getting to speak and share at conferences for a long time. I had found I was reaching a saturation point at sim conferences, where I felt it was time for me to start contributing. So I am super excited that I had this opportunity to share. And while it’s not as comfortable for me as teaching in front of a class, speaking in front of 40 people who are a different level was not as scary as I expected.
I am also realizing how much I miss being hands-on with simulation. While I am working with my team at Valley to add more sim activities and interactive learning in general to our educational materials, I do miss the challenge and reward of navigating learners through the realistic experiences of simulation and facilitating their learning through an effective debrief session.
Simulation takes deliberate practice, with mindful planning, action and evaluation. I am glad to see how far we’ve come in nursing with this learning tool. I am sad to see we are still finding under supported teams, often single faculty, trying to provide a high quality experience- at risk of burn out and potential eventual deterioration of quality… I do hope academic institutions will finally figure out how to appropriately compensate simulation educators and provide them the resources necessary to provide simulation that will give students those critical learning opportunities they are not getting in clinical.
We will see…
Jocelyn Ludlow PhD RN CHSE CNE CMSRN 