COVID‐19 educational innovation: Hybrid in‐person and virtual simulation for emergency medicine trainees

The COVID‐19 pandemic has dramatically affected medical education. Emergency medicine (EM) requires excellence in multiple core competencies, including leadership, teamwork, and communication skills as well as procedural experience. To meet these objectives, we developed a hybrid simulation model that accommodated a reduced number of learners in our simulation center to allow for physical distancing, seamlessly integrated with an online integrated experience for remote learners. All learners participated or watched one adult and one pediatric simulation case. Fourteen residents participated in live simulation, while six residents and six medical students comprised the remote group. At the end of each case, the live feed was ended, and separate debriefings were conducted by different EM faculty, in person and online (via Zoom). An electronic survey was then sent to participants to rate the effectiveness of the intervention; 23 survey responses were collected: 52.2% (12) from the live session and 47.2% (11) from the virtual session. Survey results demonstrated that the online simulation observation and debriefing had the same, if not better, satisfaction than in‐person simulation sessions and debriefings. Due to its success, this new method of hybrid simulation will be our plan for the foreseeable future, at least until COVID‐19 abates.