The faculty are very dedicated to this aspect of their career and are among the best young clinical educators I have encountered. There are more than 50 different scenarios of anesthesia disasters. Courses are run once or twice a week for a group of four to six trainees. The course is very intense and the day usually runs until about five o'clock in the afternoon. The educational value of the course is immense.
Participants have an opportunity to observe themselves and others and get feedback.
It is worth mentioning that the trainees and staff members are instructed to keep the observations of a person's performance during simulation confidential, and no performance reports are sent to the trainees' programs. On four out of five occasions, I observed the audience being drawn into direct participation with the simulation team. Upon completion of the session, many of the audience members believed that they had participated in the real event. The highest point of my rotation, however, was the precourse for the new anesthesiology residents. We invited new residents to attend a three-day course prior to beginning their residency that involved sessions in the operating room, a spinal anesthesia workshop, sessions dedicated to the anesthesia machine and preoperative evaluation.