Design principles for the use of simulation as an aid in interventional cardiology training

Learning complex skills through simulation is a goal for training physician s in specialties such as interventional cardiology, where traditional train ing puts patients at risk. Intuitively, interactive simulation of anatomy, pathology and therapeutic actions should lead to shortening of the learning curve for novice or inexperienced physicians. An accurate recreation of th e interactions among anatomy, pathology and therapeutic actions is a necess ary, but not sufficient, condition for the development of a simulation-base d training system. In addition to real-time graphic interactivity coupled w ith haptic response, a successful training tool will require features of a 'learning system' such as: an embedded curriculum, functionality that allow s rehearsal and practice, hypertext links to educational information, perso nal archiving, and instructor review and testing capabilities. We describe how such a system might look for the field of interventional cardiology, an d suggest that designing a simulation with both technical and pedagogical f idelity is essential in developing simulation-based training systems in any field of medicine.