Canadore-210Research is showing simulation in health care increases confidence in students according to Louise Moir, the Nursing Technologist at Canadore College. She co-organized a Symposium on Simulations in Health Care at the College yesterday. She says she saw this information in the Toronto area and wanted to bring the information north. Keynote Speaker Cathy Smith is a Lecturer in Family and Community Medicine at U of T, and she talked about how to enhance authentic role portrayal in simulation.

Smith says a lot of people who do role plays are not actors, but there are principals from theatre that can be utilized to portray a scenario more realistically.

Keynote speaker Dr. Bruce Ballon is a Professor in Public Health and Psychiatry at U of T and he says simulations can be used in other areas, such as Mental Health issues. He says that could surround scenarios of people just feeling anxious while sitting in the waiting room of a dentists office, and you have to train someone on how to deal with anxiety.

Ballon says the best way to find results is to build real life scenarios around anxious situations, and teach how to have a calming influence over the patient.