Advocacy in Action: Strategies to Embed, Integrate and Sustain Simulation in Healthcare

The Global Consensus Statement urges “simulation practitioners to champion healthcare simulation as indispensable.” How do we do this? Drawing on her PhD research using implementation science and her lived experience of embedding and integrating a simulation service in a teaching hospital, Rebecca Szabo will challenge us to realize this call for action. She’ll raise pertinent questions for us to consider together, and offer practical strategies to embed, integrate and sustain healthcare simulation.

Dr. Rebecca A. Szabo (she/her)

MBBS FRANZCOG MClinEd GCH (Pall Care) Spec Cert Clin Res (Onc)

Lead of Simulation | Melbourne Medical School | University of Melbourne
Lead | Women’s Health Education & Gandel Simulation Service | Royal Women’s Hospital
Honorary Senior Lecturer | Department of Obstetrics, Gynaecology & Newborn Health
Honorary Senior Lecturer & PhD Candidate | Department of Critical Care

Dr Rebecca Szabo (she/her) is an Obstetrician/Gynaecologist and Medical Educator with several leadership roles in simulation and education. She is Lead of the Gandel Simulation Service in Partnership with University of Melbourne which was established in early 2020. Rebecca is a senior lecturer with The University of Melbourne Department of Medical Education where she is the lead of simulation. Rebecca is also an honorary Senior Lecturer with Department of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Newborn Health and a Department of Critical Care where she is a PhD Candidate. Her PhD research is exploring how to embed, integrate and sustain, or normalise simulation for systems integration, quality improvement, and patient safety in teaching hospitals. Rebecca is Lead of The Gandel Simulation Service in Partnership with University of Melbourne which was established in early 2020 after she secured $2.4 million initial funding from Gandel Foundation, The University of Melbourne and the Women’s based on her research work. 

She currently practices clinically at The Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne. Rebecca has lived and worked in various locations across Australia, UK and Thailand. She has regularly supported maternity safety education and simulation in Thailand and Mongolia. Rebecca is passionate about teamwork, patient safety and the role of education and simulation as tools to improve healthcare for all. She is also passionate healthcare equity, advocacy, education as well as science and health care communication and the responsible use of social media. Her Twitter/X handle is @inquisitiveGyn.

Rebecca has been an invited speaker on simulation as a tool for quality improvement and implementation of simulation in Australia, Spain, France, Norway and Portugal. She is academic Lead of Women’s Health Education at The Royal Women’s Hospital. She is the Chair of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Simulation Training and Advisory Group (STAG). Rebecca has been a member of the Simulation Australasia Women in Simulation Committee and the immediate past Chair of the Board of AMaRE – Advanced Maternal and Reproductive Education Australia (ALSO Asia-Pacific) 2020-2023, a director of the board 2017-2023 and an instructor since 2010.