The John A. Burns School of Medicine’s (JABSOM) SimTiki Simulation Center at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa made history in September 2020 by becoming the first simulation center in the world to earn fellowship program accreditation by the Society of Simulation in Healthcare.
“Fellowship accreditation is a distinction for our education programs, reflecting contributions of the entire team, especially the fellows who believed in the quality of our program and worked hard so we could achieve this recognition,” said Benjamin Berg, director of the SimTiki Simulation Center.
Opened in 2006, SimTiki (“Tiki” derives from the Polynesian term for “human”) is JABSOM’s simulation-based healthcare education center and facilitates more than 3,000 training encounters annually. It serves as a community resource for broad training needs ranging from high school students and medical students/residents to health professionals and military personnel, as well as its international programs, including in-residence research scholar positions and programs focused on faculty development and clinical skills.
SimTiki made headlines in 2015 as one of the first 10 centers in the nation accredited by the Society for Simulation in Healthcare for the fields of teaching/education and research. In 2019, SimTiki achieved additional accreditation in the area of assessment.
The road to simulation fellowship accreditation began in 2007, which involved the submission of extensive documentation and a panel site visit with interviews of the lab directors and staff, learners, educators and JABSOM organizational leadership.
Since then, SimTiki has trained 28 international fellows. Graduates include physicians and nurses from Japan, Thailand and South Korea, who spend one to two years in a post-graduate program focused on the development of educator skills. Fellows participate in educational research, teaching, curriculum development, and often complete the JABSOM Office of Medical Education fellowship in medical education.
