Simulation-Based Comprehensive Cleft Care Workshops: A Reproducible Model for Sustainable Education

Abstract

Objective: Evaluate simulation-based comprehensive cleft care workshops as a reproducible model for education with sustained impact. Design: Cross-sectional survey-based evaluation. Setting: Simulation-based comprehensive cleft care workshop. Participants: Total of 180 participants. Interventions: Three-day simulation-based comprehensive cleft care workshop. Main Outcome Measures: Number of workshop participants stratified by specialty, satisfaction with the workshop, satisfaction with simulation-based workshops as educational tools, impact on cleft surgery procedural confidence, short-term impact on clinical practice, medium-term impact on clinical practice. Results: The workshop included 180 participants from 5 continents. The response rate was 54.5%, with participants reporting high satisfaction with all aspects of the workshop and with simulation-based workshops as educational tools. Participants reported a significant improvement in cleft lip (33.3 +/- 5.7 vs 25.7 +/- 7.6;P< .001) and palate (32.4 +/- 7.1 vs 23.7 +/- 6.6;P< .001) surgery procedural confidence following the simulation sessions. Participants also reported a positive short-term and medium-term impact on their clinical practices. Conclusion: Simulation-based comprehensive cleft care workshops are well received by participants, lead to improved cleft surgery procedural confidence, and have a sustained positive impact on participants' clinical practices. Future efforts should focus on evaluating and quantifying this perceived positive impact, as well reproducing these efforts in other areas of need.