Five Tips for a Successful Submission on Simulation-Based Medical Education

Abstract

O ver the past 2 decades, there has been an exponential adoption of simulation in health care education throughout the continuum of medical training and practice. During this time evidence demon-strating the effectiveness and impact of simulation-based medical education (SBME) has mounted: When simulation training is conducted under the right conditions and outcomes are measured by instruments with evidence for reliability and validity, research has shown not only that graduate trainees can obtain desired skills in a controlled, simulated environment 1 but also that these skills can transfer to the clinical setting 2 and, in some cases, lead to improved patient outcomes. 3 Several systematic reviews and meta-analyses indicate that the magnitude of the effects of SBME are significant and consistent across medical disciplines, and these studies highlight the features of SBME that lead to more effective results. 4–6 Faculty involved in postgraduate education are in-creasingly adopting simulation in response to several challenges: mounting curricular demands in a setting in which there are fewer real patient encounters because of changes in patient care reimbursement and work hour restrictions, emphasis on patient safety and quality care, and recently, more rigorous requirements to teach and evaluate on a regular basis the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) core competencies and developmental Milestones. 7 These pressures have led to widespread change in postgraduate medical education that increasingly involves simulation technology and innovative ways to provide a standardized training and evaluation program. At the same time, academic medical centers expect their faculty to demonstrate scholarly activity in the form of peer-reviewed publications and presentations at scientific and education meetings. The Journal of Graduate Medical Education provides detailed guidelines for the preparation of manuscripts reporting various categories of scholarly activity, and authors should always follow these instructions before submitting their work for consideration to publish. 8 The goal of this brief article is to provide 5 specific tips to authors for a more successful submission (especially in the ''Original Research'' category) on the use of simulation for health care education.