There is growing recognition that healthcare learners and practitioners experience significant emotions during training and patient care. Within this emotional context, they gain new knowledge and skills, as well as manage clinical situations. In this presentation, Dr. LeBlanc will describe the state of research on the relationship between emotions and the cognitive skills required for learning and patient care. This will be followed by a discussion about the implications for health professions education, as well as strategies to support learning during emotionally-laden learning situations.

Vicki LeBlanc, PhD, is the Chair and Professor of the Department of Innovation in Medical Education at the University of Ottawa. She has over 20 years’ experience leading research into a) the effects of emotions and stress on the performance of health professionals and frontline workers, and b) optimizing the use of simulation in health professions education. She has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications, and regularly presents her work nationally and internationally. She has held several national-level leadership roles related to scholarship, accreditation and educator development in simulation-based education. She serves on the editorial boards of Advances in Health Sciences Education and Simulation in Healthcare.

Selected publications:

• LeBlanc VR & Posner GD. (2022). Emotions in simulation-based education: friends or foes of learning? Advances in Simulation, 7(1), 3.
• LeBlanc VR., McConnell MM, Monteiro SD. (2015) Predictable chaos: a review of the effects of emotions on attention, memory and decision making. Advances in Health Sciences Education, 20:265-282.

Best Practices in Education Rounds (BPER) are co-hosted by the Centre for Faculty Development, The Wilson Centre and the Centre for Advancing Collaborative Healthcare & Education.

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