Maimonides Health trains more than 500 residents and fellows each year across specialties including pediatrics, general surgery, anesthesiology, obstetrics and gynecology, emergency medicine, internal medicine, radiology and psychiatry, and serves as a key teaching affiliate and clinical training site of SUNY Downstate College of Medicine. Its world-class center for clinical simulation and safety is formally accredited by the Society for Simulation in Healthcare and delivers experiential learning across onboarding, multidisciplinary team training, communication and professionalism development, procedural skills and medical decision-making. Learners train using immersive virtual reality simulators, high-fidelity patient mannequins and professional actors to practice high-stakes communication in controlled environments designed to translate best practices to the bedside. The center supports organizational priorities through novel programs such as an immersive psychological first aid workshop open to any hospital employee. Simulation also advances advanced illness management and age-friendly care by using professional actors to help providers practice empathetic “goals of care” conversations with patients and families. The program is integrated into hospital operations through resource-intensive in-situ simulations used to prepare for new facilities, such as recently opened and upcoming emergency departments, allowing teams to detect and correct latent safety threats before patient impact. Mass casualty simulations engage clinical response systems to strengthen crisis preparedness, and the center provides formal training in simulation-based debriefing techniques for real clinical events to promote continuous teamwork and process improvement.
