Table 7 Verbatim statements from interviews with participants with key themes

Personal impact

 1. Builds self-confidence

 I went in as a person involved in simulation for about four years and stepping out of it I felt that, even with my meagre period of experiences in this field, I stepped up feeling more confident, I stepped out knowing that I had specific things that I could contribute to the running of a simulation centre and the use of simulation in education. (Participant 1)

 I do the tech programme, the university simulation sessions, which are repeated every year. That sort of the length and breadth of what I do, but I’m stopping in the next six months looking perhaps doing some things with local GPs which would be taking simulation to them in their rooms to do ALS training. And that’s probably grown out of some confidence that I got from the AusSETT Program, and the concept of trying to spread simulation. (Participant 8)

 2. Reinforce knowledge on simulation

 I think it’s reinforced the usefulness of simulation (Participant 2)

 I think it’s reinforced a few things, it’s reinforced the merits of simulation in particular areas where there has been some research, it’s reinforced my view that we still need to do a fair bit of work around researching what constitutes effective simulation training and it has reinforced something for me…. (Participant 6)

 3. Gained new knowledge on simulation

 … see how other people do things, and then you learn that there are different ways of doing things, and I think that probably enriches you as an individual by having a look at a little bit of everything. (Participant 4)

 it’s certainly influenced my thinking and certainly influenced my knowledge in seeing what’s out there and what other people are doing and how it’s being used in other settings. (Participant 9)

 4. Interest in other simulation program for professional development

 I’m actually looking at doing a formal course now, as like the follow-on, perhaps a [removed] course or something like that. It’s certainly got my interest and I’m really keen to do more. So it’s been successful in that regard. (Participant 5)

 I think my interest from here on is obviously to get a sense of the next steps and getting a clearer picture on who have the intention of doing further training and then starting to bring that together, because I think we may get some useful feedback with collaboration with others who wish to be facilitators. (Participant 6)

Organisational impact

 1. Championing the use of simulation within organisation

 … its allowed a broader range of people to start thinking about it and getting more knowledge about it, and then hopefully discussing it more in their workplace. (Participant 2)

 I guess just opportunities to look at sharing some of what I’ve got from the program with others in our discipline as well who I know are really keen or get them along to the program to hear it as well. (Participant 5)

 2. Use of simulation

 We very much do a lot of mannequin training, and she very much opened up the doors to this hybrid system and using real people…I think that’s very interesting, and we actually have done a little bit now and we’ve had good feedback. (Participant 4)

 3. Encouraging inter-professional learning

 I’m moving simulations so one of the people in my group for this semester for example is from dentistry and veterinary science so we’re helping her set up some simulation in dentistry and also we’ve spoken about it with veterinary science as well. So we’re sort of looking at expanding it… (Participant 3)

Professional community impact

 I think it has the potential to open people’s eyes to, that there is community out there and you can get support, you can get training, and you can go somewhere and find information or ask someone for information. So I guess that’s going back to that community sort of aspect there. (Participant 7)

 I think we developed a quite cohesive group for the three days we were there and I know that we have, some of us have met up again at conferences and we’re happy, because we exchange phone numbers and emails etc.…. So I think that, yes, it was very good at developing, networking and collegial relationships. (Participant 3)

 I do the tech programme, the university simulation sessions, which are repeated every year. That sort of the length and breadth of what I do, but I’m stopping in the next six months looking perhaps doing some things with local GPs which would be taking simulation to them in their rooms to do ALS training. And that’s probably grown out of some confidence that I got from the AusSETT Program, and the concept of trying to spread simulation. (Participant 8)