Educators Confront Racism and Bias through Interprofessional Simulations: A Workshop

It is critical health professions educators (HPE) utilize concrete strategies to address racism and bias in healthcare education. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to train HPE to confront racial and social injustice after viewing simulated learning encounters. An evidence-based educational intervention included pre-recorded trigger films, scripted debriefing to help educators process, confront, and practice their responses. Nine 3-hour standardized, virtual training sessions were offered to small groups of interprofessional HPE (N=59; 90% female) [nursing (n=29), physicians (n=13), physical therapists (n=4), occupational therapy (n=3), and physician assistants (n=4). Following the educational intervention, HPEs strongly agreed they will use strategies learned to strengthen the campus community (n=54, 91.5%); recognize ways that they can embrace diversity and individual differences in the classroom, lab, and clinical settings (n=49, 83.05%); and better understand their attitudes and behaviors related to diversity, equity, and bias (n=49, 83.05%). The Simulated Effectiveness Tool-Modified indicated the prebriefing, scenario, and debriefing were effective in delivering the subject matter. Post-test scores for Social Justice Scale (n=54) indicated educators have intention to engage in social justice in ways that affect social attitudes (mean 71, SD 16, 77 points possible), perceived behavioral control around social justice (mean 30, SD 6, 35 points possible), subjective norms around social justice (mean 23, SD 6, 28 points possible), and intentions to engage in social justice (mean 26, SD 5, 28 points possible). We will describe how to create the HPE simulation scenarios, strategies for difficult conversations, and complete interactive DEI training (3-scenarios and debriefing).