Operationalizing the Healthcare Simulation Standards of Best Practice (HSSOBPTM) to avoid training scars: An interprofessional exemplar

Training scars represent residual performance habits and psychological damage when facilitators or peers fail to help learners improve during training. Originally recognized by emergency response professionals, training scars negatively influence providers’ mental health, workforce attrition, patient safety, and the future of our professions. Simulation facilitators need to be mindful that learners experience training scars, particularly when patient safety events occur in simulation without enough debriefing or expert facilitation to unpack associated emotions. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to raise awareness of training scars across disciplines and to tell the story of how expert facilitation can prevent training scars after patient safety events. An interprofessional exemplar is presented with recommendations for operationalizing the Healthcare Simulation Standards of Best Practice^TM (HSSOBP^TM) to avoid simulation training scars.