National SIM Competitions: SIMWars ACEP 15

       This past week was the national American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) national conference.  It was held in Boston, MA, and each year this conference features a simulation competition for residents called SIMWars.  Residency programs from across the US submit an application to compete, and 6 programs are chosen.  They are put up against each other for competition, and the best team remains standing at the end.

ACEP 2015 SIMWars competition, Boston, MA

       Yesterday, last years champions, the Harbor-UCLA EM residency, stepped up to the plate to defend their title.  And man did they ever!  They rose to the occasion, and walked away as second time champions!  Go Harbor!

       I got involved in the planning for SIMWars several months prior to the conference.  After a conference call with the director, we were divided into teams to create cases that would challenge our resident learners in a fun and exciting way.   With topics like Waterhouse-Friedrechson syndrome, lyme carditis, and Anticholinergic poisoning, we threw everything but the kitchen sink at the residents, and they really rose to the challenge.   Working together with my team was very fun, although at times it proved challenging due to time zone differences across California, Chicago and New York.   Our case and case stimuli were reviewed and then made ready for the competition.

        The SIMWars committee met together the night before the competition to work out logistics, such as who would play certain roles during the cases, in which order we would present them, and what props and tools were needed in order for each case to get carried out appropriately.  We also prepared several informative facts about our cases that could be sent out in tweets using the hastag #simwars.   This would allow anyone searching for this hashtag to find all facts, pictures, and comments placed on the feed by participants, audience members, judges and those of us from the SIMWars committee.

ACEP 2015 SIMWars committee

       When the competition began the next morning, the SIMWars committee was excited to get started (see our happy photo to the right).  We served as confederates for our own and each others cases, playing the role of the nurse, family members, and even that of patients themselves!  Moulage was used to create a realistic feel to the cases, and they were made even more challenging for the residents due to belligerent patients and family members.  Some teams were able to handle this quite well, while others were not so good at it.  Either way, all teams got a really good learning experience, and most importantly, we had a lot of fun doing so.  In addition to the experience, hundreds of tweets were sent out along the way with pertinent information to each case.

       Participating in ACEP SIMWars was definitely a fun and educational experience, not just for our participants and the audience, but for the simulation guru, such as myself, as well.   Many of the committee members were fellows and simulation directors from programs all over the US, and all of us eager to teach and learn.  This conference would not have been possible to put on without the interdisciplinary teamwork that occurred among us.  From the basics of case creation, to the recruitment of judges, such as the infamous Scott Weingart.

Most importantly, participating on the SIMWars committee has created a network of new friends who also share the same passion.  So as this years competition came to a close, we are all looking forward to returning to SIMWars and helping to make ACEP 2016 an amazing experience in Las Vegas!

Interest Groups On the Rise... but Start Small

So...... having an interest group on campus turned out to be slightly more challenging than I thought.  The logistics behind getting a group approved on campus was rather tedious.  A constitution must devised and filled out.  Once that is done, students are only allowed to apply during a certain time of the year.  So although we began our group meetings several months ago, we were only formally approved as a campus group mid september last month.

Aside from formalities comes the financial dilemma as well.  Our group was approved for a grand total of $75 dollars in funding!  But hey, that's $75 dollars more than we had last year!

SIMIG SIM-tober Fest staff and faculty: Left: Dr Mark Langdorf,
Center: Dr Julie Sayegh (thats me!), Right: Dr Eric McCoy 

But we continued to meet anyway, and together, came up with the idea of having our first SIMIG conference.  The students were anxious to get started with this, so I entertained the idea of a Halloween themed event.

This week, me and the medical students held our first SIMIG conference!  Called SIM-tober Fest, it included four 30min rotations that consisted of a simulation case, suturing station, IV station, and intubation station.  The event was a success, and  we are hoping to host it annually.

I was very surprised by the way the students really took the reigns in helping to design this event.  I met with them and discussed the logistics.... the simulation case we would run, and the procedure stations that we should incorporate.  I wanted to give them autonomy in putting the rest of the conference together.  The students were ecstatic, and wanted to open the conference to the entire medical school.  However I had to remind them that, with this being our first event,
it was also our first introduction to the rest of the medical school campus, and we wanted to impress!

I cautioned the group that perhaps we should limit the number of students we allow to participate.  This worked out great for several reasons:

1. It gave us control over teaching.  I wanted to limit the event to 24 people.  Realistically, having more than that many people in the same room makes teaching SIM and debriefing rather difficult.  I wanted this to be a learning experience in addition to fun. 
2. It allowed us to utilize our resources wisely.    Because most of the SIMIG members are 2nd year medical students, they did not know how to intubate, suture or start IVs.  I met with them several weeks in advance to teach them these skills.  This allowed the students to practice until the day of the event, so that they could become the teachers. We did get some faculty members to volunteer to supervise the event (shown in the photo above), but having small student groups would prevent my novice teachers from getting overwhelmed if they had to be on their own. 
3. It made a 2 hour conference possible.  Lets face it... conferences are fun.  But they are even more fun when they are informative, interactive, and can be done in a short period of time.  We wanted are participants to get a good taste of what simulation has to offer, and small groups made 30min rotations possible.  
4. It made our event seem exclusive.   Within 24 hours, all 24 spots were filled, and we had several others on the waiting list to attend the event.

Overall, the event was a success and a big hit with the students.  Please enjoy some video footage of our event below.  

Have you put together any simulation conferences?  How was your experience?  What do you think about our SIM-tober Fest?   Please share your comments below!