Australia's First SIM Fellowship in Physiotherapy

18/Mar/2020     Health

Felicity Prebble is a Physiotherapist and the first allied health, non-medical team member to complete a SIM Fellowship with Mater Education which was funded by Mater Foundation.

The results of her fellowship have been overwhelmingly positive with physiotherapists and clinicians alike reporting many educational benefits from her training simulations.

“My fellowship lasted for 12 months where I worked with Mater Education two days per week setting up simulation training activities for nurses, interns and other physiotherapists,” Felicity said.

“I mainly focused on two areas of simulation training which were respiratory illnesses and critical care situations. I encouraged participants to recognise the signs of deterioration in patients and allowed them to practice interventions and treatments.

“We also created a Code Blue simulation in the outpatient’s gym which gave the participants some excellent hands on experience in dealing with a critical care situation.”

As she was the first allied health team member to complete a fellowship Felicity explains she had to make the fellowship her own and think of creative scenarios to interest and challenge her participants.

“I had no idea what to expect but I took more from the fellowship han I ever expected. Many of the participants I worked with said they felt both their confidence and clinical knowledge had improved,” Felicity said.

Dr Sarah Janssens who is the Director Simulations Obstetrics & Gynaecology oversaw my fellowship and was incredibly supportive along with the entire simulation team; we work very collaboratively between allied health and Mater Education.”

The fellowship was the first of its kind in Australia and Felicity presented the outcomes of her clinical simulation programs at the Australian Physiotherapy Association Conference last year.

Due to the success of the fellowship Felicity is now mentoring a Mater at Home physiotherapist undergoing the program this year with a focus on dementia, delirium and cognitive health.

This year, Felicity is doing a training needs analysis project to review allied health's inter-professional education collaborations with medical and nursing where she will be working collaboratively with medical and nursing staff both clinically and in an educational space, to improve patient outcomes.

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