Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Haru Okuda — USF Emergency Medicine

Meet Dr. Okuda

In this blog, I’ll be featuring Dr. Haru Okuda, one of our faculty members at USF and a giant in the emergency medicine world. He holds several important titles including being the President of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, serving as the Executive Director of USF Health’s Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation (CAMLS) – one of the best simulation centers in the country, and he’s USF Health’s Associate Vice President of the Office of Interprofessional Education and Practice. Clinically, he works as an emergency physician at Tampa General Hospital and is a faculty member for the USF EM Residency Program. Prior to taking a position at USF, he served as a national medical director of SimLEARN, where he was responsible for simulation programs at over 150 VA medical centers and held another lofty job managing the Institute for Medical Simulation and Advanced Learning for the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, the largest public health system in the United States.

What’s he best known for? Where do we start???

He co-authored the Oral Boards textbook, invented SIMWARS, and is the most notable medical simulation educator in the world. Dr. Okuda has been a leader in emergency medicine since his time as a chief resident at Mount Sinai.

How did this chief resident become the physician leader he is today?

Dr. Okuda contributes much of his success as a leader to mentorship. “I’ve really had some great mentors in my early career. My original chair at Mount Sinai was Dr. Shelly Jacobson, who pioneered the EMS system in New York City. He was a servant leader to the end…I dedicated the oral boards book to him. I appreciated learning from him how to put others in front of yourself and how to lead for the sake of something bigger than yourself. I learned about the values of why it is important to be a leader.” Two other individuals served as a big inspiration in Dr. Okuda’s early career, Drs. Andy Jagoda & Lynne Richardson. “He (Dr. Jagoda) was an innovator and not afraid to take things on. He was a communicator and a collaborator. From Andy, I learned the skills of how to be a leader...I learned to navigate working across silos and how to collaborate. I learned how to turn lemons into lemonade.” As Dr. Okuda spoke of his mentors, I could feel his admiration and respect for those that had contributed to his formative years. He went on to mention another physician that inspired him to become a leader. “She was a pioneer,” he said, referring to Dr. Lynne Richardson. “She was a black woman in emergency medicine, one of the top-funded researchers, and a pioneer who mentored others to do great things.” Dr. Okuda recalled a time in Dr. Richardson’s career when others discouraged her from being a researcher and told her there was really no role for research in Emergency Medicine. “She was frustrated about this, and she went on to become one of the top researchers in our field.” Hearing Dr. Okuda speak about his mentors resonated with me. A good mentor honestly does play a role in shaping how we develop professionally and personally.

What’s on his agenda as President of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare?

This is what Dr. Okuda had to say about his goals this year as the President of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare. “One of the things I will champion this year is advocating for simulation and educating decision makers about the importance of simulation in healthcare, much like the airline industry did with simulation-based requirements that are regulated now at a federal level. The second area I’ll be focusing on is technology and innovation. In simulation we have used task trainers, manikins, and simulated patients for the last twenty years. We are now moving into augmented reality, virtual reality, and distance learning methods that are emerging…We need to work with industry to define the future of technology for training and education based on our needs.”

**How did Dr. Okuda develop SIMWARS?**

I wasn’t going to leave an interview with Dr. Okuda without first finding out how he developed the idea of SIMWARS! It turns out that the inception of SIMWARS was during Dr. Okuda’s time at Mount Sinai. Picture this: it’s 2008 in New York - Scott Weingart is getting into critical care, Dr. Okuda is developing his interest in simulation, and Andy Jagoda decides to host a city-wide critical care conference. Okuda, Weingart, and Andy Godwin (Chair, UF Jacksonville) brainstorm how to create a fun, innovative simulation experience at the conference and SIMWARS was born. After launching it at the conference, it wasn’t long before the group was asked to host events at numerous other conferences. Now, SimWars is basically a branded method of education that has become widely popular and is a key component of any good emergency medicine conference and has been embraced on a national and global level.

Dr. Okuda just returned from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he conducted a workshop on how to implement SimWars in the Middle East.

How did he become the voice behind the USF podcast?

Dr. Okuda is a bit of a celebrity in the EM world, but my admiration for Dr. Okuda grew even more when I began listening to a podcast he started in 2020 called, “Healthcare Superteams.” This podcast which Dr. Okuda created and hosted focused on high functioning teams and the importance of teamwork, communication, and diversity to improve healthcare. I asked Dr. Okuda how he ended up leading a podcast. He responded, “I like doing new things. The idea of the podcast probably started as a result of my commute to work. My Assistant Director and I were thinking about how we could reach a large audience and do a podcast on interprofessional teams and education. We decided on a podcast and the first topic we chose was this idea of healthcare teams.” The first season looked at successful teams outside of healthcare and concepts of high functioning teams that could be put into practice within the world of healthcare. The second season included thought provoking discussions centered on the importance of diversity and healthcare and the newest season focuses on something that is especially of interest to EM physicians as it focuses on mental health and combatting burnout. Dr. Okuda’s interviews tackle important issues we face in healthcare today. Take a listen!

Dr. Okuda recording Healthcare Superteams.

Interested in knowing more about Dr. Okuda?

It was a pleasure interviewing Dr. Okuda for our training blog. USF is an amazing place to be thanks to the presence of incredible faculty members like Dr. Okuda. If you’re interested in knowing more about Dr. Okuda, visit his bio here: https://camls-us.org/about/leadership/ or check him out on social media!

About the Author

This post was written by Dr. Enola Okonkwo. Dr. Okonkwo is the Associate Program Director for the USF Emergency Medicine Residency.