We are very pleased to announce that John Vozenilek, MD, FACEP, the current Director of the Northwestern McGaw Simulation Network, will assume a new and expanded role as Director of Simulation Technology and Immersive Learning for the Feinberg School of Medicine, and will be fully engaged on the Chicago Campus as of October 1, 2008. In his current Northwestern McGaw role, Dr. Vozenilek works to provide central coordination and oversight to help our graduate medical education programs achieve the goals of the ACGME Outcomes Project. In the new role, he will now create additional organizational capabilities within the Feinberg School, building resources for educators who wish to use additional innovative learning technologies for teaching and assessment. The scope of this collaborative work will include undergraduate, graduate, and continuing medical education. Dr. Vozenilek's recruitment is a key step in plans for a major expansion of our capabilities in clinical simulation and related learning technologies. A number of our faculty are nationally recognized for their expertise in various aspects of simulation technology and assessment, and several facilities for clinical simulation already provide essential experiences for our students and residents. These include the Feinberg School’s Clinical Education Center and Weinberg Medical Informatics Training Center, the Northwestern Center for Advanced Surgical Education (N-CASE) managed by the Department of Surgery, the Department of Anesthesia's Clinical Simulation Center, and Children's Memorial Medical Center's KidSTAR program. We will soon be building an additional high fidelity simulation facility in the McGaw Pavilion, and additional expansion in the coming years will be essential if we are to achieve the level of excellence in our educational programs to which we aspire. Dr. Vozenilek is an assistant professor of emergency medicine and medical education at the Feinberg School. In addition to his responsibilities in learning technology and simulation, he will be actively involved in the academic programs of the Department of Emergency Medicine and in clinical practice at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He will continue to collaborate with the Institute for Healthcare Research and its Center for Patient Safety, and teach within its Masters Degree program in Healthcare Quality and Safety. Dr. Vozenilek is a graduate of the University of Miami School of Medicine, and trained in emergency medicine at Northwestern McGaw. He serves as medical advisor to the Chicago Clinical Skills Evaluation Center of the National Board of Medical Examiners, and has led the interest group on simulation within the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine. He recently co-chaired the first Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) -sponsored national consensus conference on using simulation research to define and develop clinical expertise. His research has been funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, private foundations, and the AHRQ. In his prior role at Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, he created the Center for Simulation Technology and Academic Research (CSTAR) in 2003, composed of two state-of-the-art simulation facilities, one at Evanston Hospital and the other at Highland Park Hospital. Dr. Vozenilek's academic office will be located in the Augusta Webster Office of Medical Education, Ward Building 1-003, 303 East Chicago Avenue. Please join us in welcoming Dr. Vozenilek to the Chicago Campus. | 
