Media Release

Ajman, Apr 10: The 1st ever medical simulation olympics organized by the Center for Advanced Simulation in Olympics, Gulf Medical University was won by GMC Hospital Ajman team. Such medical simulation olympics were conducted for the first time in the entire region.

MedSim Olympics 2015 was held as part the first annual conference on recent trends in clinical skills and medical simulation organized by the Center for Advanced Simulation in Healthcare GMU on April 9. The preliminaries were held on April 4. National Ambulance Abu Dhabi, Al Mafraq Hospital Abu Dhabi and GMC Hospital Ajman were the three teams who cleared the preliminaries and entered the finals. Mafraq Hospital and National Ambulance won silver and bronze medals respectively.

The conference held for the first time by CASH was attended by more than 200 delegates from all over the country. Dr Yusuf Al Serkal, assistant undersecretary hospital affairs MoH, was the chief guest and Thumbay Moideen founder president Board of Governors GMU was the guest of honor.

The finals were judged by Dr Tim Kristensen, Denmark, Professor Guillaume Alinier, Qatar, Professor Robert O’brien, Australia, Carrie Hamilton United Kingdom, Dr Ayad Al-Moslih, Sharjah University and Professor Manda Venkatramana, GMU Ajman. Professor Gita Ashok Raj, Provost GMU gave away the prizes and trophies to the winners.

Zahra Al Hilali, territory director, Middle East and North Africa at American Heart Association who attended the conference and witnessed the olympics said that she was highly impressed with the event and wished for more such events to be organized in the country. MedSim Olympics is an excellent idea and having set the precedent, CASH can become the leaders in this field and hold many such scientific events in the region. She assured complete support of AHA for all the educational activities undertaken by CASH.
One of the speakers Dr Ayad Moslih felt that the idea of combining simulation Olympics along with the conference is an idea beyond excellence. He added that he had a very rich learning experience listening to international experts.

Some of the keynote talks delivered were simulation – based team training – implementing best practices in a healthcare setting by Dr Tim Kristensen, department of pediatrics and Danish Institute for medical simulation, Herlev Hospital, University of Copenhagen, integrating simulation across undergraduate health professions education by Professor Manda Venkatramana, director, CASH, Gulf Medical University, Ajman, UAE, immersive simulation in advanced life support training by Dr Ayad Al-Moslih, College of Medicine, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, UAE, trends in interprofessional simulation learning by professor Guillaume Alinier, head of research, HMC Ambulance Service, Doha, Qatar, professor of simulation in healthcare education, University of Hertfordshire, UK, simulated Patients, Hybrid and Multimodal Simulation by Ms. Carrie Hamilton, Simulated patient lead, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust and Trends in Research in Simulation based Medical Education by Professor Robert O’brien, clinical education fellow, University of Melbourne, department of medical education.

All the visiting dignitaries later attended the first external advisory board meeting for CASH. They have formulated strategies and plans to enhance the center to one of the leading simulation centers in the region.