If you attended this year’s meeting, the Society in Europe for Simulation Applied to Medicine (SESAM), you know that this year’s conference focused on some pivotal shifts in how key experts are looking at patient simulation. If you didn’t attend, you should know what some of those experts said. Not only was this year’s SESAM conference one of the best attended, but it was also notably optimistic about the future of patient simulation. The agenda addressed new directions that patient simulation is taking, directions which are bound to improve the delivery of healthcare globally. 

In this special SESAM review, hear our hosts Michael Sautter and Bjorn Egeland speak with SESAM leaders and attendees. Guests included Cristina Diaz Navarro, Associate Dean for Simulation and Clinical Skills Chair of the SESAM; Elsa Søyland, CEO of the Stavanger Acute Medicine Foundation for Education and Research (SAFER); Representatives from the Scottish Emergency Medical Retrieval Service; and several SESAM attendees. All remarked that this year saw an increased emphasis on Competency-Based Education and best practices for learner assessment. But this year’s agenda was also heavily weighted towards the use of simulation as a means for quality improvement.  As one of our guests highlighted, simulation is being used increasingly as forensic tool to better understand risk, identify areas for systems improvement, and improve care delivery. All this spells a new future for simulation.