Sim Teams Awarded Provost’s Grant for Summer Pipeline Program

The Margaret Wood Center for Simulation and Education has received a 2021 Provost’s Seed Grant Award for Addressing Racism. The project, “A Simulation-Based Education Pipeline Summer Program to Introduce Diverse High School Students to Careers in Health Care,” is a cross-unit collaboration with the Helene Fuld Health Trust Simulation Center at the Columbia University School of Nursing. “By drawing in students who may have an interest, this project begins at the grass-roots level to address the local community’s need for more equitable representation in the health professions,” said Dr. Ansgar Brambrink, chair of the Department of Anesthesiology. “This is meaningful outreach that aligns with our core values for diversity and inclusion.”

Faculty and staff from the two simulation centers will create a 2022 summer program for high school and junior high students from the Washington Heights community and from Harlem. “We will collaborate with Columbia’s Double Discovery Center to identify the participants,” said Allison Lee, MD, MS, Medical Director of the Wood Center for Simulation and Education and the department’s Officer of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

“At high school age, students are not admitted to most clinical spaces, so simulation is the perfect surrogate and an engaging way to get them an up-close look at what we do as doctors and nurses,” said Dr. Lee. “We’ll invite professionals from other disciplines as well, such as social workers and physical therapists. And we have an exciting set of activities planned, including Basic Life Support certification, panel discussions, and creating public service health videos for TikTok.”

The project was proposed by David S. Wang, MD, Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology and Assistant Director of the Anesthesiology Residency Program, Director of the PGY-1 Program, and Associate Program Director of the Critical Care Medicine Fellowship, with Kellie Bryant, DNP, WHNP, CHSE, Associate Professor of Nursing and Assistant Dean of Clinical Affairs and Simulation at the Columbia School of Nursing.

Pictured: Students intubating mannequin at the Margaret Wood Center for Simulation and Education, 2018.