Industrial and Organizational Psychology in Medical Simulation

Industrial and organizational psychology (IOP) is the scientific study of human behavior in organizations and encompasses areas related to recruitment and selection, training and development, employee motivation, leadership, organizational change, and performance appraisal. Because of its emphasis on optimizing human performance and organizational outcomes, IOP can contribute several theoretical and practical strategies for enhancing the effectiveness of medical simulation training efforts. Increasingly, IOP currently applies to a broad range of areas within healthcare, including physician selection, skills verification, and team training. With increased awareness of its potential, it is expected that the field of IOP will have an even more integral role in medical simulation in the future. The sections that follow highlight just a few areas in which IOP can inform medical simulation training endeavors.