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Prof Deb Kiegaldie and Assoc. Prof Ellen Davies - ASC2025
21 Plays5 months ago
Mel had the great opportunity to catch up with two leaders in healthcare simulation at the Australasian Simulation Congress in Adelaide August 11-14:
Professor Debra Kiegaldie - the Interprofessional Education and Simulation Lead for Monash University’s Faculty of Medicine, Nursing & Health Sciences in Melbourne, and
Associate Professor Ellen Davies, the Research Program Lead at Adelaide Health Simulation
Recommended
Transcript
Intro
Introduction at the Australasian Simulation Congress
00:00:41
Speaker
Welcome to Simulation Happy Hour. I'm very excited for this episode. So we are at the Australasian Simulation Congress and I'm here with Deb and Ellie.
00:00:51
Speaker
Hi guys. Hi, how are you? know no Good, thank you. I might get you guys to introduce yourselves to the listeners and tell us a bit about what your role is.
Deb K. Gowdy's Introduction and Roles
00:01:05
Speaker
Well, I'm Deb K. Gowdy and I currently work as the simulation lead and interprofessional education lead for Monash University, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing, Health Sciences, so a very large faculty.
00:01:17
Speaker
So that is my primary role. And I'm also the chair of the board for the Victorian Simulation Alliance. So I wear two hats at the moment.
Ellie Davies and Adelaide Health Simulation
00:01:27
Speaker
I'm Ellie Davies and I lead the research program for Adelaide Health Simulation at the University of Adelaide.
00:01:34
Speaker
Excellent. And your workplace is front and centre at SimCongress. It sure is. So we're platinum sponsors this year. So investing some time and resource into working with the community here.
00:01:49
Speaker
We've got a booth that has got some lounges on it. So really trying to create the space for people to have some conversations around simulation. And Deb and I did a tour yesterday of your SimCenter. It's very impressive.
00:02:02
Speaker
Yes. You have very impressive actors as your simulated participants and patients. We certainly do. We have a marvellous team and I think what we try and emphasise on the tours that we do is that we have beautiful facilities and we have a lot of amazing equipment but what is key to our success is the team that we work with.
00:02:22
Speaker
So we have a very um very um strong sense of team and commitment to what we're doing at Adelaide Health Simulation and that includes our simulation technicians, our simulated participants, our academics and our research team.
Embedding Research into Workplace Culture
00:02:41
Speaker
Fantastic. And so good segue. so So you're into research and you're heading simulation based research. So there's a lot of people out there that try and get sim based research plan off the ground or they don't know where to start. They know they want to do something.
00:02:59
Speaker
Any suggestions? Well, I guess started in this role at the beginning of 2022. So I've been in a full-time research position for three years now.
00:03:09
Speaker
And when I started in the role, I was and in my interview for the job, I felt and I still feel that it was really important that a research role involved both making sure that the team had access to research and could build their understanding of research process,
00:03:28
Speaker
and that there was output from what we're doing as well. So that there was research that was really embedded into the culture of our workplace. And we've used several strategies to help support that. so we have yeah weekly journal club where everyone's invited. We have people that come who don't work in research or as an academic, but they come and they're involved in conversations about publications.
00:03:54
Speaker
also make sure that we are connecting with other people. So a big part of the strategy has been inviting people in to come and work with us on scholarship projects and research projects, but also that we're going out and working with people who want to be involved in research. So trying to build that connection across our our schools and our faculties within the university, but also outside of that in our health networks as well.
Evolving Research Priorities and Practices
00:04:21
Speaker
hu How do you decide what to research, what to prioritise? is there Is there an answer to that? or um um So far the programme has evolved quite organically. So we've pursued projects where we have people with interests in particular topics.
00:04:39
Speaker
And the role that I have as I see it is to support good research practice for people wanting to pursue good research questions. So we spend a lot of time crafting those questions and thinking about the methods that we want to use and and making sure that good research practice underpins what we're doing.
00:04:59
Speaker
But in terms of the projects themselves, they've been wildly diverse and they have really related to the interests and expertise of the people that are coming to do research with us.
Collaboration and Innovation in Simulation Research
00:05:11
Speaker
And that's probably similar for us at Monash University too. so very, very large faculty and watch and I've only really just gone back and returned to Monash at the start of last year. So it's been a process of finding people where they are and what they're doing, just really connecting the different professions. There's about 15 health professions that exist within our faculty. So it's really finding out who's who, what type of work they're doing. And we've been able to put together a simulation subcommittee and that's right across the faculty. And it's a brand new committee.
00:05:49
Speaker
And it's been really fantastic because it's really connected everybody. And even to the point of seeing the work that's being done within different areas, where they engage with other faculties within Monash University, like the Faculty of IT.
00:06:05
Speaker
And there's been some really interesting projects that have emanated from that. So i think what I've discovered in the last year is really just the amount of innovative work that's being done.
00:06:16
Speaker
so whenever I see something really innovative and different, i always ask, you know, what are you doing about wrapping a research project around this and just really ensuring that you're capturing the data that, you know, it really shows the impact that you're making.
00:06:32
Speaker
So we've we've just seen some really exciting work, particularly with the AI simulated personas. um We're about to publish a paper on some of the work that we've done with that in our collaborative online international learning program, which um partners with four other countries.
00:06:46
Speaker
and there's some other really interesting AI learning analytics work that we're doing um within our nursing area, which we're busily writing up a paper with that. So I see my role very much as connecting people within the faculty and just really giving them an opportunity to bolster the work they do from a research perspective. So it's all about creating that community, I think, within within a faculty and not just focusing on one particular profession, but ensuring that all professions have an opportunity to publish and be involved in projects in some way.
Engaging Novice Researchers
00:07:20
Speaker
And I also think scholarship, so to get kind of novice researchers and simulationists, like even writing up what they do as a bit of a case study is a really good place to start. And there are journals out there that you can publish those for free. and Absolutely. And it doesn't always have to be the high impact journal.
00:07:40
Speaker
think it's really getting people started and exciting and motivated to do research and just giving them the the skills and the opportunities to to um to bring people together to do that.
00:07:50
Speaker
I mean, being again, being such a large faculty, we do have very capable researchers and sometimes they're obviously supervising PhD students and master's students. So it's really, you know, just harnessing the skills that people have and and just really supporting the other people into, you know, taking it a step further.
00:08:11
Speaker
Yeah. So what would you see as h excuse me, getting over the lurgy a sign of success? Is it like the number of PhD students or is it the number of papers or is it the fact that you've got engagement? Like how do you measure success?
00:08:29
Speaker
In many ways, I think. I think... There are yeah there's ways of measuring you know number of publications or a number of HDR candidates that have gone through a program.
00:08:40
Speaker
But I think what I enjoy seeing about how this program has evolved and how research evolves is what are the kinds of conversations that it's generating? How is it changing the way in which we are working in our Sim Centre?
00:08:55
Speaker
How is it that we're helping support clinicians' practice in their health services and using research and the projects that we're doing to support improvement in patient care?
00:09:07
Speaker
And a lot of those things are intangible. They're they're not things that can be measured particularly easily, they're the things that I enjoy and want to see continue coming from the work that we're doing.
00:09:19
Speaker
Lovely. Excellent. Thank you. I'm going to change tack.
Evolution and Growth of the VSA
00:09:24
Speaker
So Deb, putting on your other hat as the head of Victoria Simulation Alliance, so we call it the VSA.
00:09:32
Speaker
Can you tell people what that is and do you have to be Victorian? No. Okay. So the VSA, I've had a long association with the VSA. We really started as a just a simple steering committee back in 2010. People that, probably many people that are like individuals that are here at this conference that might be starting out afresh and in simulation don't quite know what to do, don't know how to get started. So it really came together as a community of practice and it's really stayed that community of practice over the many years. So we we started small and then we knew that there was ah ah significant interest in in this in this sort of community community of practice.
00:10:20
Speaker
So then we sort of moved to a different model where we became a little bit more official and became an incorporated association, which meant we had to have a constitution and and then we became a ah ah proper board with all of the responsibilities that go with that. And what that helped us to do was gain some support from the Victorian government, for instance, and they could really see that simulation was moving in Victoria.
00:10:45
Speaker
and they wanted to support those that worked in simulation, whether that be in the health services area or within higher education or even vocational education for that matter. So they provided some financial support for us to be able to build a website and put together a whole lot of training resources which we were able to do. So I think having that sort of support at that level helped us to be sustainable.
00:11:12
Speaker
So that's what has really stood the test of time for us. COVID probably set us back and we thought we might, you know, fold during COVID, but we kept on going. it is a volunteer board. So we do it because We're committed to supporting simulation within Victoria, but we do know that our, we've and we've gone from a membership model through to a subscription model now. So it's free to join and it's not just a Victorian, even though it's a Victorian simulation alliance, um are people from all over the country
00:11:45
Speaker
that now subscribe to us and we've recently again we've we've um been supported by the by the VMIA which is an indemnity organisation in Victoria ah supporting healthcare care and they too have realised that there's a real need particularly within the perioperative space around translational simulation so they've got a particular interest in translational sim so it's great to see all the work that Victoria Brazel's doing and various other individuals Nancy Sadker and and Western Health, Northern Health, so many of the major health services in Victoria now are just really looking at this. So they too have really provided some financial assistance to us to be able to get the word on the street about Translational Sim and and in doing so, our membership has really grown.
00:12:32
Speaker
So we're well over a thousand subscribers now. and growing and we're just um holding, we're managing to hold some really exciting events. some Our first Translational SIM event was last year and it was at Western Health and it was absolutely fantastic and we're about to have another one at Northern Health this year. So we're we're still, our remit is largely the same. We're all about connecting people that work in SIM. We're all about supporting those individuals to have a resource available to them and and to have a forum where they can network and really learn from each other. So I feel it's a really exciting time for us and and we're really looking to um to the future in terms of
00:13:15
Speaker
You know, market expansion for us, I think is really important and making sure that we're meeting the needs of of many people that work in simulation in Australia. I think Australia are really leading the way in many ways in terms of sims.
00:13:29
Speaker
you know, we're there to really help help that cause. Great. Now, I'm a Queenslander and I am a member of the Victorian. And we brought her into the fold. And it's great. Although I might not get to the Victorian events, there's online webinars and there's lots of ways. And also, you know, linking in with research, you have research Absolutely, we do have research group. And actually, we're about to send out a survey to all of our subscribers to really find out what they want.
00:13:56
Speaker
in terms of the VSA, but also what do they want in terms of research in particular. So we do now have ah we we have a committee structure. So we have an events committee, business and finance and marketing and communications committee and a and did I say research committee? Yes, so we've got a research committee. So Lisa McKenna has just taken over that she's really keen to see, you know, what what can we do as an organisation that can really help to support research within our community too.
00:14:27
Speaker
So exciting stuff ahead. Fantastic. So this is day one of the Congress. So a couple of more days to go Anything in particular you're super keen on?
Looking Ahead and Reflections
00:14:41
Speaker
Well, you're going to be in another podcast. I'm going to be in another podcast. yeah So on stage simulcast, yes, is I'm really looking forward to. I think one of the papers, well, both of the papers are ones that I've been part of the authorship team for.
00:14:56
Speaker
And one of them was with our simulated participant group. And one of our SPs is coming to be part of that panel, which is really great. i I also really loved Vic's keynote this morning. i think she's always inspiring to listen to and keeps challenging us to think about things progressively.
00:15:15
Speaker
And I really love the way that she invites us to think about actionable insights from the data that we collect and the conversations that we have. So a good focus, I think, there.
00:15:26
Speaker
I think I made some notes of, you know, just comments that were made at different moments. And at the opening today, phil was saying that, you know, simulation does shape our world behind the scenes. And I think that's a ah ah really interesting way of thinking about simulation. And think he was also saying that,
00:15:48
Speaker
simulation really foundationally is there to make humans make better decisions and do things better so it's been nice to focus on some foundational elements of simulation I've seen some really good short presentations and I need to keep looking at the program but I'm sure it'll be good the next couple of days too yeah Yeah, there's a lot happening. There's a lot happening. I did enjoy the tour of the of the yeah simulation centre yesterday, so it was good to see something that's so well developed and very learner-centred, so I enjoyed that too.
00:16:27
Speaker
And it was great today. Looking forward to the next two days. All right. Well, thank you, Associate Professor Ellie Davies and Professor Deb Kiegaldie Thank you so much for joining us.
00:16:40
Speaker
thanks Pleasure. ah Thanks, Mel.