The Simulation Launchpad course, introduced in 2022, is a two-day short course designed for medical educators, and teaches educational theory and practical elements of simulation-based education. Simulation-based education forms an integral part of undergraduate, post-graduate and in-service teaching across healthcare disciplines. This course is designed to address the gap in Africa in access to contextually relevant training in simulation-based education and provides basic educational theory and practical concepts. The course was designed and is facilitated by experienced South African simulation educators with varying backgrounds and content expertise.
The course is designed to equip candidates to run simple clinical simulations and is envisioned as part of a series of short courses offered at the University of Cape Town. During the course faculty workshop and explore what healthcare simulation is, identify key concepts in facilitation, instructional design and delivery, debriefing theory and tools, and the implementation of simulation-based education. The course centers on five key theoretical and facilitation concepts, with Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) a central key concept.
The second day of the course sees candidates applying the concepts learnt on day one through the delivery of a set of simulations by transdisciplinary groups of candidates, with design guidance and post-delivery feedback from the facilitators. Candidates receive a digital course manual with resources for future learning and development.