Updates from the ACS-AEI Committees

Although the current global environment has provided us with new challenges to address, it has also afforded the ACS-AEI Standing Committees opportunities to demonstrate the value of the consortium through its products and services. It has been a very active season for the AEI Standing Committees since the fall report. Here are the progress reports for spring 2021.

The Administrative and Management (A&M) Committee is off to a strong start this spring. We held another successful MORE (Management, Operations, Research, and Education) Track program for the consortium during the 2021 ACS Annual Surgical Simulation Summit. The track offered two sessions this year. Effective Staff Training: Simulation Growth Pathways was a one-hour session where panelists shared experiences with staffing models, recruitment, onboarding, growth pathways, retention, and employee engagement. The program concluded with the Zoom-In Session: Interactive Focus Groups on MORE-Related Topics, which gave attendees a chance to network and candidly discuss specific themes during the four rounds of facilitated interaction.

Also this spring, the committee is producing the 10th issue of the A&M Committee newsletter, which connects and advances AEIs by sharing valuable news and information about operations know-how, best practices, events, and contacts to help readers keep pace with the constantly evolving operations that support medical simulation. Included in this issue will be a recap of the 2021 MORE Track, a DIY model recipe on abscesses, and the Meet the Member's column on Dr. Darlene Bourgeois from the Lahey Center.

Results from the December 3 Virtual Grand Rounds (VGR), "Lessons Learned While Educating during a Pandemic," which was co-hosted by the AEI Dissemination Committee, indicated that attendees felt it was a strong session for this committee's first try on the VGR platform. The purpose of the session was two-fold: Two AEIs described and demonstrated through an interactive session how they conducted education and training while in a virtual environment and the lessons they learned while using this modality. Additionally, the session presenters demonstrated how to implement their centers' programs for use at another center. The A&M Committee is working to select another topic for a VGR session in 2022.

For more information on Administration and Management Committee activities, please contact Co-Chairs Jeffrey B. Howells, MS, MBA (JHowel1@lsuhsc.edu), and Melinda Klar, RN (mklar@utmck.edu), or Vice-Chair Jesika S. Gavilanes (gavilane@ohsu.edu).

The Curriculum Committee leadership recently transitioned Co-Chair Amy K. Gardner, PhD, to a consultant role, and Vice-Chair James N. Lau, MD, MHPE, FACS, moved into the open Co-Chair position this spring. The committee thanked Dr. Gardner for her many contributions and welcomed her to the new role as a consultant. Additionally, the Curriculum Committee is seeking members to join its roster. For more details, please contact Amy Johnson at ajohnson@facs.org or 312-202-5415.

This committee has had a very successful season, bringing to fruition the two projects that have been our focus for the past two years. The Communications Skills Curriculum based on OSCE-based Milestones is now under review and use by this committee for piloting this spring. The curriculum is a series of OSCE-like simulation modules to teach residents communication skills using the milestone competencies as its framework. Currently, there are three modules in the toolkit—Breaking Bad News, Hand Offs, and Informed Consent—that have scenarios, video vignettes, didactic material, post-implementation surveys, and more for resident learners.

The Online Curriculum Development Tool (OCDT) project led by Dr. Nehal Khamis is an online tool that would enable the user to create a curriculum for a simulation-based course in a systematic, evidence-based six-step approach. The tool underwent a revision to create a shortened version of the six-step tool for piloting. This abbreviated, interactive PDF, developed in December with the help of the Lahey Center, should assist staff with tracking to determine the tool's use for a longer, robust version, which would be permanently housed on a platform.

At the recent March meeting, the Curriculum Committee was also able regroup and lay the foundation for developing new products for the consortium. This committee can now turn its attention to the following new projects: a booklet for the OCDT, which would go into greater detail of the tool and encompass the full process of the different steps to get a better understanding of how it works, and a proposal for a new curriculum map for teaching and assessment from the 2019 joint entrustment workshop and manuscript.

For more information on Curriculum Committee activities, please contact Co-Chairs Luis E. Llerena, MD, FACS (lllerena@HEALTH.USF.EDU), and James N. Lau, MD, MHPE, FACS (James.Lau@lumc.edu).

The Committee for the Dissemination of Educational Resources has been active over the past couple of months. The committee welcomed three new members, Drs. JaNae Joyner, Deborah Farr, and Benjamin Veenstra, and quickly addressed the mission of reviewing the entire catalog of materials collected by the consortium through the years. There were multiple workgroups created to assess each saved video, audio, and written event in the archive for current pertinence for the consortium's education and history, as well as creating key words and cataloging tools for rapid searches across multiple platforms. The second component of the committee mission is the production and maintenance of the Virtual Grand Rounds programs. The committee is currently in the process of adding new members to the VGR Program Committee, as well as establishing a standing calendar for the thrice yearly presentations.

As the committee works through the initial aspects of their projects, they look to be able to communicate with the other AEI committees and membership as the enhancements are developed.

For more information on the Committee for the Dissemination of Educational Resources' activities, please contact Co-Chairs Mark Aeder, MD, FACS (mark.aeder@uhhospitals.org), and Olivier Petinaux, MS (opetinaux@facs.org).

Since its last report, the Faculty Development Committee has completed its current deliverables and is resetting with new committee projects and a call for committee nominations to position themselves for a strong transition of leadership after 2021. Current Co-Chair Nehal Khamis, MD, PhD, MHPE, will move into a consultant role, and Vice-Chair Dmitry Nepomnayshy, MD, MSc, FACS, moved into the open Co-Chair role this winter.

The Article of the Month Series (AotM) booklet, Current Trends in Simulation-Based Education, was printed and released in November 2020 to AEIs. This compilation stemmed from the consortium's 2015 needs assessment study to identify the current trends and needs in the development of faculty simulation educational skills among our AEIs with the goal of establishing resources to help support these initiatives. The identified themes were in the areas of curriculum development, learner assessment, debriefing, education research, program evaluation, and faculty development. The booklet is now available as a PDF that can be e-mailed to interested individuals. A new proposal was suggested at the March meeting to revive the AotM Series in the form of a podcast, like a TED Talk, and staff is looking into ACS capabilities to do so.

The joint Online Curriculum Development Tool project led by Dr. Khamis is underway for piloting after shortening the tool into an interactive PDF to track AEI usage for the expanded version, which would involve moving the content to a vendor-based permanent platform. This committee is interested in co-authoring with the Curriculum Committee a booklet that would explain the steps in the process and provide an appendix with both the full and short versions of the tool.

The Faculty Development Committee is readying a manuscript for publication based on the successful 2019 entrustment workshop held jointly with the Curriculum Committee. A new deliverable was proposed from this original project to work again with the Curriculum Committee to develop assessment tools for entrustment.

The two workshops developed for the canceled 2020 Annual Summit, Bottoms Up! Integrating Inter-Professional Education into a Health Sciences Center (developed with the Curriculum Committee) and the popular FUN Workshop competition, will be repackaged for use this spring into summer.

For more information on Faculty Development Committee activities, please contact Co-Chairs Nehal Khamis, MD, PhD, MHPE (nehalkhamis@yahoo.com), and Dmitry Nepomnayshy, MD, MSc, FACS (Dmitry.Nepomnayshy@Lahey.org).

At the end of 2020, outgoing Chair Evangelos Georgiou, MD, PhD, moved into a consultant role for the International Committee. This committee thanked him for his numerous accomplishments as Chair since the committee's inception in 2017. Vice-Chair Lars Enochsson, MD, PhD, transitioned into the Chair role, and committee member Andrea Moglia, PhD, moved into the open Vice-Chair position. The International Committee is currently seeking new members to handle our increasing workload. Please contact Amy Johnson at ajohnson@facs.org or 312-202-5415 for more information.

This spring, through host AEI IRCAD in Strasbourg, France, and committee leadership, the international community participated in the online portion of the International Committee's first collaborative course, Train the Hybrid Trainers. The course has two parts: an online theory section with MCQ and an in situ hands-on section. Approximately 28 faculty members were invited to conduct the course.

The summer issue of the AEI International Newsletter is in the works for an August release.

For more information on International Committee activities, please contact Chair Lars Enochsson, MD, PhD (lars.enochsson@umu.se), or Vice-Chair Andrea Moglia, PhD (andrea.moglia@endocas.org).