A Preliminary Study of Simulation in Emergency Medicine Training in A Taiwanese Teaching Hospital

Background: Emergency residents' ability to manage critically urgent patients is an essential skill. Simulation-based education provides learning opportunities in a patient harm-free setting. Objectives: The purpose of the study was to design a simulation training program and assess patient care skill of different levels of residents. Methods: This study enrolled twelve residents in a simulation-based emergency management curriculum. The curriculum was held every two months. Participant studied the trainee manual as a pre-course assignment. After completing three SBE classes in six months, we used an action-item checklist to assess residents in four different scenario stations. Residents completed the pre-simulation written test and a survey with the perceived effectiveness of the simulation-based curriculum at the end of the assessment. Results: The third-year residents outperformed the other residents. The overall residents' simulation average score in four scenarios were higher than the pre-simulation curriculum written test (70.4 ± 7.3 vs. 63.3 ± 9.8), and there is a significant difference (p ＜ 0.05). The perceived effectiveness was higher for R1 than R2 and R3 ( 4.8, 4.0, 3.7, p ＜ 0.05). Scores for overall satisfaction in residency training after the integration of simulation-based education into the curriculum were positive up to 85.0. Conclusion: Our simulation-based education training program is effective in improvement and assessment of residents' patient care skill.