Greetings, everyone. Fall is now (almost) upon us even though the weather where I live seems firmly stuck on summer temperature settings, and it is only five short months to IMSH 2027 in New Orleans.
I am already looking forward to seeing many of you there at what will be another amazing conference.
September is an important month for the simulation community due to Healthcare Simulation Week, a five-day event where we focus as a global community on the profound impact what we do has on education, patient safety, and, ultimately, on human lives. It is a time for celebration, learning, and making connections, and I hope that each of you finds a way to engage meaningfully with it.
This year, however, another event of great importance to our community falls during Healthcare Simulation Week: World Patient Safety Day. World Patient Safety Day was initiated in 2019 with the theme “Patient Safety: A Global Health Priority,” and each subsequent year has focused on a different problem we face in building safer healthcare systems.
To those of us engaged in simulation work the connection between these events should be clear; if World Patient Safety Day exists to name the problem, then Healthcare Simulation Week offers the solution.
The fact that these two days fall within the same week this year should not be viewed as a coincidence but rather as a clarifying moment.
Simulation is not peripheral to patient safety, but is one of the most adaptable, scalable, and evidence-based methods available for closing the gap between clinician training and the standard of excellence that every patient deserves in the care they receive.
This year’s World Patient Safety Day slogan is “Safe care for life!”, and I would like to close by challenging each of us this month to consider how we can use simulation to make this aspiration a reality in the lives of those we serve.
Here's to wishing you all well in your Healthcare Simulation Week 2026 celebrations,
Aaron Calhoun, MD, FSSH
SSH President, 2026-27