Comprehensive Healthcare Simulation: Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

This practical book is designed to be a hands-on guide for healthcare simulation personnel to both understand the context of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in healthcare education and how to bring those concepts to life in simulation training.

The first section of this guidebook grounds the readers in the concepts of EDI in contemporary culture and specifically within healthcare education. The second section gives practical tips and ideas on setting up a simulation program that is grounded in EDI principles. This section covers areas related to staff recruiting, faculty representation, appropriate manikin and moulage diversity, creating patient scenarios, inclusive debriefing, and more topics.

The final section brings EDI in practice to life with real examples from around the world. Simulation examples, concepts, and principles that focus on a diverse range of patients and their needs. This includes patients of various races, religions, nationalities, abilities, and even scenarios of bias from a patient to healthcare provider.

This book ensures the next generation of healthcare professionals are trained not only in an equitable and inclusive manner, but that they are prepared to approach all of their future patients that way.

Jennifer Calzada, MA, MPH, FSSH, CHSE, has been the Director of Simulation Education for the Tulane Center for Advanced Medical Simulation & Team Training since its inception in 2008. She has been a TeamSTEPPS Master Trainer since 2010, certified in Design Thinking for Human Centered Healthcare in 2020, a Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator (CHSE) in 2022, and inducted into the Society for Simulation in Healthcare’s Academy of Fellows in 2024. She has a BA in Communications (Loyola University), an MA in Media Studies (The New School), and an MPH in Global Environmental Health (Tulane School of Public Health).

She has extensive experience and expertise in team training, program management and evaluation, simulation education and assessment, and simulation curriculum development. She serves on multiple international industry workgroups, committees, or boards, and has published several chapters in simulation textbooks, including in industry-leading titles, Defining Excellence in Simulation Programs (1st and 2nd editions), Comprehensive Healthcare Simulation: Program and Center Development, and Comprehensive Healthcare Simulation: Surgery and Surgical Subspecialties.

Amy Nakajima, MD, FRCSC, MSc, lives and works in Ottawa, Canada, the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabeg People. She is the Director, SIM Advancement & Innovation, Simulation Canada, and plays a major role in designing and delivering the organization’s simulation-based faculty development courses. She completed her medical school training at the University of Alberta, her residency training in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Saskatchewan, and her MSc in Human Factors and Systems Safety at Lund University, Sweden. She is a co-editor of Recent Advances in Technologies for Inclusive Well-Being: Virtual patients, gamification and simulation, published by Springer in 2017.

She is also an associate professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Ottawa, and continues to be an active clinician-teacher, providing community-based care at the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health and at Saint-Vincent Hospital (Bruyère Health), and participates in undergraduate, postgraduate medical education and faculty development at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Medicine. She holds a leadership position at the University of Ottawa medical school as a Pre-Clerkship Director, and serves on several national-level committees.

Jamie M. Robertson, PhD, MPH, CHSE, CHSE-A, FSSH, is a Senior Research Scientist at the Neil and Elise Wallace STRATUS Center for Medical Simulation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is the course director for the operating room (OR) team training program, which has been running for over a decade. She is a Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator-Advanced (CHSE-A) and a fellow of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH). She holds a PhD in Epidemiology and an MPH in Behavioral and Community Health Sciences, both from the University of Pittsburgh.

Her research focuses on non-technical skills and interprofessional team training programs, particularly for procedure-based specialties. She has extensive experience in designing simulation scenarios, conducting debriefings, and developing curricula. In addition to her roles in simulation, she oversees many professional development programs at Harvard, providing global education.

Co-Editors:

(Editor) Jennifer Calzada, MA, MPH, FSSH, CHSE, Director of Simulation Education, Tulane University School of Medicine, 1430 Tulane Ave, #8040, New Orleans, LA 70112, U.S.A.

(Editor) Amy Nakajima, MD, FRCSC, MSc, Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Ottawa, 501 Smyth Road, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1H 8L6

(Editor) Jamie M. Robertson, PhD, MPH, CHSE-A, FSSH Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, Harvard University, Senior Research Scientist, Brigham and Women's Hospital, 75 Francis St, Suite CA-127, Boston, MA 02115