Internationally renowned CMS faculty visits Mater

Mater Education was delighted to host the internationally renowned Center for Medical Simulation (CMS) faculty, who recently spent almost a month at Mater teaching, visiting our facility and meeting Mater staff.

CMS Education Director, Dr Robert Simon, said he was excited to be working with Mater Education as an Affiliate Partner.

“Mater’s right on the cutting edge of where simulation’s at nationally, even internationally.

“Investing in the people to use this powerful tool, getting them trained, helping them enhance their skills after they’ve been trained, keeping them current… I think Mater is well ahead of the game in that context,” Dr Simon said.

During their visit, Mater Education faculty co-facilitated two CMS courses as part of a teaching affiliation with the CMS, which attracted diverse participants from all around Australia.

Simulation as a Teaching Tool, which ran from 23 to 26 February, is an intensive four-day program designed to develop participant’s skills in delivering safe and effective simulation-based learning.

The CMS Advanced Debriefing course, which ran from 2 to 5 March, explores advanced techniques from experiential learning and organisational psychology, to enhance and extend instructional simulation techniques.

Course participant and Mater Education Simulation Fellow, Dr Dominic Ormston, said it was excellent to access a world-class level of instruction and advice, locally here in Brisbane.

“It’s quite an intense course. It’s intellectually draining, it challenges a lot of your previous thinking and at the end of it, it actually changes the way you think.

“I strongly recommend the CMS Simulation as a Teaching Tool course to anyone who wants to work in simulation, or to anyone who wants to better understand the dynamics between colleagues,” Dr Ormston said.

Mater Education CEO, Donna Bonney, participated in the CMS Advanced Debriefing course as a student, and said the course was transformational.

“The skills learned and practiced throughout the course can improve simulation-based teaching and learning no doubt, but their application is much broader,” Ms Bonney said.

“This approach to conversations can actually improve communication in all areas of your professional and personal life.

“I think that as a leader, it is essential to model the life-long learning culture we want to have in our organisation.

“Sometimes, this requires you to ‘un-freeze’ your thinking, be open to receiving feedback on your current practice and on ways to improve.

“This course is a very effective and engaging way to do that,” she said.