ORCID

0009-0009-6105-0312

Keywords

Medical Simulations, Medical Teams, Team Leader, Eye-Tracking

Abstract

Pediatric medical emergencies are dynamic, high-intensity clinical situations that demand coordinated interdisciplinary actions for optimal patient outcomes. Effective teamwork and leadership are critical, especially during the preparatory phase. Here, team leaders define task goals, assign individual roles, and maintain situational awareness. This phase directs attention, organizes team dynamics, and ensures medical interventions are deployed properly. Medical simulations provide a unique opportunity to capture dynamic leadership behaviors in a controlled low-stakes environment using multimodal data, such as eye tracking, to gain insight into team leader cognitive processes (i.e., attention allocation and information processing). Prior research suggests that leaders who visually attend to team members demonstrate effective team coordination and leadership performance. However, most work focuses on active intervention, neglecting the earlier planning phase. As such, this study addresses the planning phase of a pediatric emergency simulation with medical mannequins. Nineteen (N = 19) first-, second-, third-, and fourth-year residents completed an emergency pediatric medical simulation as the team leader, where their visual attention to task-, tool-, and role-related stimuli were recorded. These eye tracking metrics were analyzed in relation to leadership performance, team performance, and medical care efficiency. Despite previous findings, no significant relationships emerged between visual attention and performance outcomes. One possible explanation is that task instructions and case information were presented audibly, potentially diverting attention and cognitive resources away from visual stimuli during planning. These findings suggest that further research is needed on how information delivery influences cognitive processing and cognitive load in high-stakes medical settings. Implications can inform simulation training, feedback systems, and AI-based educational tools to support team leadership and patient safety in pediatric emergencies.

Completion Date

2026

Semester

Spring

Committee Chair

Azevedo, Roger

Degree

Master of Science (M.S.)

College

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Department

School of Modeling, Simulation, and Training

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Identifier

DP0053242

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