The Center for Medical Simulation

Mary Fey & Penni Watts: Getting Nursing Schools Ready for INACSL Endorsement | Dare to Be Ready #6 12.06.2026 21min

n this special episode led by Mary Fey, Dr. Penni Watts, President of INACSL, joins us to discuss what we learned helping two nursing schools achieve INACSL endorsement, and how other nursing programs can get there! Listen: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-center-for-medical-simulation/id1279266822 Watch: https://www.youtube.com/medicalsimulation What does high-quality simulation look like in practice and how do nursing programs know they’re achieving it? Using the Center for Medical Simulation's recent work with the University of Maine System as a case study, Mary and Penni discuss how endorsement becomes less about recognition and more about creating a disciplined process for reflection, alignment, and improvement. For nursing leaders focused on competency-based education and workforce readiness, the conversation offers a practical perspective on building simulation programs that scale while maintaining quality. Topics include continuous improvement, faculty development, stronger partnerships with clinical organizations, and moving simulation from isolated events into an intentional curriculum that better prepares learners for practice. ALPS for Health Professions Schools: https://harvardmedsim.org/alps-applied-learning-for-performance-and-safety/ Full episode transcript: https://harvardmedsim.org/blog/mary-fey-penni-watts-getting-nursing-schools-ready-for-inacsl-endorsement-dtbr-6/

Jenny Rudolph Meets the SSH Mindfulness SIG | Curious Now 42 05.06.2026 25min

Esmira Yusufova, RN, Lucas Ferris, RN, and Julie Hartman from the Society for Simulation in Healthcare’s Mindfulness Special Interest Group join us to reflect on their recent tries at the workout of the week: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-center-for-medical-simulation/id1279266822 The Mindfulness Group chose to work on Curious Now #9, “What Are You Listening For?” about different listening styles. The group discussed the challenges of breaking out of the mode of listening that you developed growing up—especially feeling shame about listening to respond and take your turn more than listening to truly understand the person who you are talking to. The group also came up with a mindfulness workout of the week as a follow-up for themselves and listeners. Workout of the week: Make yourself wait 10 seconds, not just after you ask a question, but after you receive an answer, in order to allow a second silence for other learners to jump in. Leadership Coaching from Jenny Rudolph: https://harvardmedsim.org/personal-leadership-coaching-with-jenny-rudolph/ #healthcaresimulation #nursing #medicine #debriefing #psychsafety

How to Invite People In | Curious Now 41 29.05.2026 20min

“Walk me through what your work looks like,” is one of the most powerful questions a leader can ask: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-center-for-medical-simulation/id1279266822 By understanding how each worker accomplishes the tasks that they’ve been assigned, we can often spot weaknesses in the system that would not be evident from an assessment of each role in the team on its own. Workout of the week: Find a situation where you can claim leadership AND invite input. Leadership Coaching from Jenny Rudolph: https://harvardmedsim.org/personal-leadership-coaching-with-jenny-rudolph/ #healthcaresimulation #nursing #medicine #debriefing #psychsafety

Making Work More Tolerable | Curious Now 40 22.05.2026 16min

What does it mean when psych safety literature asks us to emphasize the purpose of the work as a leader? When we have psych safety, it can make the risks involved in making things better feel worth the effort: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-center-for-medical-simulation/id1279266822 There are so many ordinary, even menial things we do every day, where if we can ferret out how they connect to our bigger values, or how they support the mission, they feel less draining and chore-like. Our colleagues in operating rooms improvement referred to these small, percentage improvements as “identifying and removing pebbles from your shoe,” and they add up into a significantly more comfortable workplace. Workout of the week: Identify and state the larger purpose of a seemingly trivial task. What is the big gear that this small gear is slowly turning? Leadership Coaching from Jenny Rudolph: https://harvardmedsim.org/personal-leadership-coaching-with-jenny-rudolph/ #healthcaresimulation #nursing #medicine #debriefing #psychsafety

CMS Fellowship Stories: Dr. Hannah Lawn, New Zealand 15.05.2026 10min

When Dr. Hannah Lawn returned home after completing a fellowship at Center for Medical Simulation, colleagues asked a simple question: How did the experience change you? “It’s changed my career,” she said. “I honestly feel like a different doctor since returning from my fellowship.” https://harvardmedsim.org/simulation-fellowship-and-international-scholars-program/

Psych Safety for Leaders | Curious Now 39 08.05.2026 24min

Moving our series on psych safety to the team level: how do we set expectations regarding things like reporting mistakes, managing uncertainty, or how we’re going to depend on one another? https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-center-for-medical-simulation/id1279266822 As a leader, we’re in charge of setting standards for issues like, whose voice gets heard in meetings? Who gets to decide when we’re done talking about a topic, and are going to move on? You can see how this is incredibly relevant on the floor or in the unit. The standard of prioritizing what we get to spend time on -- and what we don’t -- can be an unspoken, but fundamental part of the culture of our team. We can also test whether our current dynamic is working through a simple paradigm: if it doesn’t feel socially comfortable to name how decisions are made in the current system out loud, then the current process probably can’t stand up to critique and needs to be changed. Workout of the Week: State aloud, in a meeting, what the decision process for a decision being made is going to be. Leadership Coaching from Jenny Rudolph: https://harvardmedsim.org/personal-leadership-coaching-with-jenny-rudolph/ #healthcaresimulation #nursing #medicine #debriefing #leadership

Psych Safety: Boundaries & the Cost of Growth | Curious Now 38 30.04.2026 22min

Psych Safety: Boundaries and the Cost of Growth | Curious Now 38 Why are we talking about boundaries in a series on psych safety? When we can’t hold consistent standards for ourselves and what we will tolerate, that unpredictability begins to undermine our team’s feelings of safety: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-center-for-medical-simulation/id1279266822 As we start to change ourselves and the way we interact with people and systems around us, we will often encounter what psychologist Harriet Lerner called “change-back reactions,” with the people we were in some sort of set pattern with acting out or demanding we go back to how we were before. How can we maintain a center of calm and confidence, and know that changing is the right thing to do? Workout of the Week: Identify a safe modest test where you can experiment with setting a boundary. Pick an area where you are prepared to withstand any change-back reactions you encounter. Leadership Coaching from Jenny Rudolph: https://harvardmedsim.org/personal-leadership-coaching-with-jenny-rudolph/ #healthcaresimulation #nursing #medicine #debriefing #psychsafety

Psych Safety: The Tradeoffs of Staying Silent | Curious Now 37 24.04.2026 25min

Where’s the line between requests and boundaries that we’re comfortable making, and ones that seem impossible to set? https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-center-for-medical-simulation/id1279266822 How do we recognize the trade-offs we are called to make when we are considering setting a boundary about what we will and won’t do? The reason we think about this in the context of psychological safety is that losing track of these boundaries can create an underlying emotional volatility—where we go along to get along until it’s too late and then bubble over or explode. In duos, the consequence to psych safety is not just a loss of our own feelings of safety, but the fact that our teammates can’t trust us to tell them when there’s a problem, which degrades their safety as well. Workout of the Week: Notice and name tradeoffs that are coming up for you—when setting a boundary, granting a request, or making a compromise. Leadership Coaching from Jenny Rudolph: https://harvardmedsim.org/personal-leadership-coaching-with-jenny-rudolph/ #healthcaresimulation #nursing #medicine #debriefing #climbing

Psych Safety in Duos: Seeing & Being Seen | Curious Now 36 17.04.2026 17min

How do we offer the kind of connection our teammates need to strengthen psychological safety in our teams, especially in duos? https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-center-for-medical-simulation/id1279266822 In the still-face experiment, not receiving the kind of mirroring or attention that infants expected led to rapid deregulation of emotion. We see similar types of emotional deregulation when adults are not seen and heard the way they expect to be by their teammates. Our teammates’ bids for connection can come in many forms, and they can also be deeply unskilled—whether through argument, complaint, or passive aggression. How can we hear what’s being asked for, especially if the request lands unpleasantly on us? Workout of the week: Catch moments where connection is being sought, and offer it. This can be checking in on a weak social signal, or understanding when someone is making an unskilled bid for connection and treating them generously with your attention or patience. Leadership Coaching from Jenny Rudolph: https://harvardmedsim.org/personal-leadership-coaching-with-jenny-rudolph/ #healthcaresimulation #nursing #medicine #debriefing #climbing

Developing an AI Tool that Gets Teams Ready | DTBR #5 10.04.2026 26min

A clinical situation involving a violent patient led Dr. Henrique Arantes and team at Hospital Universitário Sagrada Família in Araguari, Brazil to examine whether it would be possible to use AI to quickly design an effective readiness plan around de-escalating violent patients in conjunction with a new safety protocol in their hospital: https://www.harvardmedsim.org/blog/ an-easy-free-ai-tool-that-gets-your-teams-ready This gap, with a lot of risk to provider safety and morale, led to his creation of the first draft of a Readiness Planning Tool, which was refined with the help of the CMS-ALPS Senior Director Chris Roussin. Now deployed in CMS affiliate programs across multiple hospitals, health systems, and countries, the tool allows teams to create context, refine goals, and implement best practice trainings much faster in response to hospital needs and sentinel events. On the Dare to Be Ready Podcast from the Center for Medical Simulation, Henrique, Chris, and CMS Assistant Director of Instructional Design James Lipshaw give a step-by-step walkthrough showing how to use AI tools effectively to partner with people around what they actually need, rather than imposing solutions from the top down. This podcast episode is available to watch on Youtube or to listen on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Youtube: https://youtube.com/medicalsimulation/ Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-center-for-medical-simulation/id1279266822 Access the Readiness Planner App: https://gemini.google.com/gem/1Pajk5Ayc6gMeg9-XsKpMZgSsAEx9AAGX?usp=sharing How to use the tool: In order to use the tool, you will need a Google account and to agree to the Google Gemini terms of service. When you open the tool for the first time, it will appear to be the standard blank Google Gemini screen. Type in anything (“hi”) and hit enter and the actual Readiness Planning tool will launch. #healthcareai #aiinhealthcare #clinicaltraining #medicine #nursing

The First Step of Psychological Self-Rescue (with Hans Florine) | Curious Now 35 03.04.2026 26min

When we make a mistake and get into psychologically unsafe territory, how do we recover quickly, especially when the consequences of freezing are so high?: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-center-for-medical-simulation/id1279266822 Hans Florine, a renowned name in the world of rock climbing, joins us to discuss a particularly difficult recovery from an error: having to descend El Capitan with a broken right heel and a left tib/fib fracture eight hours into a climb up the mountainside. In extreme physical and mental pain, and with the consequences of any additional errors being potentially life threatening, how do you take the steps to rescue yourself from a difficult situation? Workout of the Week: In a moment where you feel stuck, frozen, frightened, overwhelmed, find and do the one thing you can to stabilize yourself. Leadership Coaching from Jenny Rudolph: https://harvardmedsim.org/personal-leadership-coaching-with-jenny-rudolph/ More from Hans Florine, including his book On the Nose: A Lifelong Obsession with Yosemite’s Most Iconic Climb: www.hansflorine.com #healthcaresimulation #nursing #medicine #debriefing #climbing

Are You Psychologically Safe? | Curious Now 34 27.03.2026 15min

Are You Psychologically Safe? | Curious Now 34 What are the nature of the moments where our feelings of safety in a role evaporate, and we suddenly find ourselves feeling very exposed?: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-center-for-medical-simulation/id1279266822 There are moments when our perceptions of being able to do the task in front of us drain away, the floor drops out, and you have the thought, ‘I could really make a fool of myself here,’ or “I could really hurt someone if I mess up.’ Autonomic nervous system reactions take place, and we experience what organizational behaviorists call ‘threat rigidity.’ We tend to be more controlling, less collaborative, and less exploratory. Workout of the Week: Detect the moments where you are feeling unsafe, and see what physiological, psychological, and other responses are happening for you. What is the quality of those feelings of unsafety? Leadership Coaching from Jenny Rudolph: https://harvardmedsim.org/personal-leadership-coaching-with-jenny-rudolph/ #healthcaresimulation #nursing #medicine #debriefing

Psych Safety: HVAC for Learning | Curious Now 33 20.03.2026 20min

How do we create psychological safety for our learners, especially when their day to day work begins to feel increasingly challenging and risky?: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-center-for-medical-simulation/id1279266822 Whether the task is cognitive, emotional, or kinesthetic, having each other’s backs and supporting one another are going to be keys to helping people reach out for the next handhold on their learning climb. Workout of the Week: Note the moments in your day to day when you do feel psychologically safe: to take risks, to ask a question you don’t know the answer to, to work at the edge of your expertise in order to get better. What is contributing to those moments? Leadership Coaching from Jenny Rudolph: https://harvardmedsim.org/personal-leadership-coaching-with-jenny-rudolph/ #healthcaresimulation #nursing #medicine #debriefing

That's Not What I Meant | Curious Now 32 13.03.2026 20min

Today on Curious Now we’re looking at how to repair after what you said or did lands the wrong way: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-center-for-medical-simulation/id1279266822 Intent/impact mismatches are really common, and for good reason: We have access to our intentions--We do not have access to others’ intentions--So we fill in the gap, often with the most negative possible interpretation. As leaders, because we see our own actions in the context of our intent, we can have blind spots as to the impact of our words and actions, and even cause us to feel wounded when we don’t get the reaction we were looking for. Join us for the signs and symptoms of an intent/impact mismatch, and how to repair! Workout of the Week: Notice when there has been an intent/impact mismatch, and ask for a redo, ie “Sorry, I don’t think that landed how I meant. Can I rewind and try again?” Leadership Coaching from Jenny Rudolph: https://harvardmedsim.org/personal-leadership-coaching-with-jenny-rudolph/ #healthcaresimulation #nursing #medicine #debriefing

Just Tell Your Learners What to Do! (with Mary Fey) | Curious Now 31 05.03.2026 29min

Introducing “Coaching with Good Judgment”: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-center-for-medical-simulation/id1279266822 In simulation, we’ve often defaulted to debriefing and asking curious questions to our learners to try to understand the frames behind their actions and struggles. This can be hard to balance with the truth many teachers of novices know, which is: sometimes learners just need to be told what to do! Coaching with good judgment is a strategy based off debriefing with good judgment, with the structure of “Preview, Advocacy, Coach.” Step 1: Authorize yourself to coach. Sometimes we struggle with wanted to be “learner centered,” when what they need is for us to use our expertise to tell them what would work. Step 2: Diagnose a coaching situation. Some signs and symptoms of a coaching situation: The learner begins to struggle and one or more of the following may be true: 1) The task is meaningfully complex 2) You have lived experience of the task being difficult 3) The practice can’t move forward without this step working 4) This error can be corrected just at the level of actions without knowing what they are thinking 5) We’ve agreed that this is a skills session in advance Step 3: “I see… I think… Try this…” Use the Preview, Advocacy, Coach structure to help the learner understand what to do and why, then quickly take more reps. Workout of the week: Try out “I saw… I think (the consequences of what I saw and my concerns are)… Here’s what you should try.” Leadership Coaching from Jenny Rudolph: https://harvardmedsim.org/personal-leadership-coaching-with-jenny-rudolph/ #healthcaresimulation #nursing #medicine #debriefing

Navigating Fight/Flight/Freeze in ER Conversations (with Hayden Richards) | Curious Now 30 26.02.2026 23min

Hayden Richards, an Australian emergency physician and founder of the Youtube channel CommsLab, joins us to compare notes on confronting what’s going on underneath our fight/flight/freeze responses as clinicians in high stakes conversations: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-center-for-medical-simulation/id1279266822 This collaboration began with Hayden’s excellent explainer on Advocacy Inquiry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGvEAxVox5U Much like our work with looking at the hidden emotions underneath our judgment, Hayden’s work on mindfulness helps people to feel less buffeted by the stimuli of the emergency department as well as of everyday life. Workout of the Week: Use a “good judgment statement” that begins with the words “I’m worried….” Hayden points out that this type of statement of concern lets the listener know that you don’t know all the answers, but this is what you’re thinking about as you find your way together. Leadership Coaching from Jenny Rudolph: https://harvardmedsim.org/personal-leadership-coaching-with-jenny-rudolph/ #healthcaresimulation #nursing #medicine #debriefing

How Shared Standards Can Bring Down the Heat (with Gabe Reedy) | Curious Now 29 19.02.2026 37min

How Shared Standards Can Bring Down the Heat (with Gabe Reedy) | Curious Now 29 Gabriel Reedy, Editor-in-Chief of Advances in Simulation, joins us to talk about how shared standards can bring down the heat in workplace conflicts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-center-for-medical-simulation/id1279266822 How do we as teachers and clinicians provide the conditions for people to thrive? If we want people to get better, we have to agree in a shared direction to move regarding what better looks like. How can we make sure that standards are continually growing with the field and with evidence from what has actually happened in the world so that our practice doesn’t get static or stagnant? Workout of the week: Notice when the heat level is rising in a conversation when it isn’t clear what’s raising the temperature, and use curious questioning to figure out why! Leadership Coaching from Jenny Rudolph: https://harvardmedsim.org/personal-leadership-coaching-with-jenny-rudolph/ The Advocacy-Inquiry Rubric in Advances in Simulation: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s41077-025-00381-z #healthcaresimulation #nursing #medicine #debriefing

Debriefing Teacher Judgments (with the Canberra Meta Debrief Club) | Curious Now 28 12.02.2026 43min

Thank you so much to our Australian hosts including Nathan Oliver and the Canberra Region Debriefing Club, a community of skilled, thoughtful teachers who made this virtual visit a deep and helpful conversation: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-center-for-medical-simulation/id1279266822 In this week’s episode, Jenny joins the Canberra Region Meta Debrief Club to talk about moments in our teaching where our judgment flares up and we start to get indignant with our colleagues and our learners, even ones who we care deeply about! This wonderful group of participated in a meta-debriefing of their experiences with difficult judgments during their teaching and personal lives that helped us understand what’s happening to us when we flare up from our judgments. Workout of the week: When you find yourself judging, or even experiencing heightened emotions, ask yourself, what is the standard I’m holding here? Leadership Coaching from Jenny Rudolph: https://harvardmedsim.org/personal-leadership-coaching-with-jenny-rudolph/ #healthcaresimulation #nursing #medicine #debriefing

The Edge of Jenny's Practice | Curious Now #27 06.02.2026 13min

Working from a challenge by Eve Purdy, this week Jenny is focusing on the edge of her expertise and the work she’s currently doing for herself, which is self-leadership using internal family systems. What this does is cast on floodlights onto your reactions, allowing you to understand the parts of yourself that are in conflict and that are putting you into a reactive mode. So who is the part of Jenny that pops out and turns her prickly and drops the Basic Assumption during meetings and other conflicts? Workout of the week: Identify and name a part of yourself that keeps popping up regularly. Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-center-for-medical-simulation/id1279266822 Leadership Coaching from Jenny Rudolph: https://harvardmedsim.org/personal-leadership-coaching-with-jenny-rudolph/ #healthcaresimulation #nursing #medicine #debriefing

Why Are You Hiding Your Judgment? | Curious Now #26 30.01.2026 18min

A very common dilemma—you can see something that you know can be done better, but you’re struggling with how to say that to the person doing it without damaging your relationship. Why does it keep happening that we hide our expert judgment about the situation? Leadership Coaching from Jenny Rudolph: https://harvardmedsim.org/personal-leadership-coaching-with-jenny-rudolph/ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-center-for-medical-simulation/id1279266822 #healthcaresimulation #nursing #medicine #debriefing