Simulation-based medical education (SBME) in healthcare education is a complementary training method to hands-on patient care.1, 2 Benefits of SBME include procedural training, team training, development of communication skills, and simulation of low frequency, high risk medical events to be practiced in a safe environment.3 With a greater focus on patient safety, the need to reduce medical errors, decreased patient encounters and for deliberate practice of new skills, SBME is widely adopted in training residents and other learners.3, 4, 5

Among US pediatric residency programs, SBME is used to teach pediatric residents about emergent situations, procedures, and communication.2 Simulation can enhance pediatric residents’ retention, knowledge, procedural proficiency, and group resuscitation performance.6, 7 Despite the advantages of SBME, it is time and resource-intensive, requiring coordination of facilitator, simulation space, and resident schedules. No consensus or guidelines exist about how to best use simulation to prepare pediatric residents for independent practice. A more coordinated approach to simulation curriculum development would allow pediatric residency programs to integrate simulation into existing education while maximizing the benefits and minimizing the costs of SBME.3, 4, 5

The purpose of this study was to establish consensus among pediatric SBME experts for the components of a national simulation curriculum for pediatric residents to support the learning and skill acquisition of American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) content. The study methodology followed a modified Delphi approach, a method for generating consensus that has been used for content prioritization of curriculum in residency training programs.8, 9, 10, 11 Given that SBME is time- and resource-intensive, the results will help pediatric residency programs understand which curricular content can be taught via simulation as an adjunct to their clinical and didactic experiences.