The Promoting Excellence and Reflective Learning in Simulation (PEARLS) Approach to Health Care Debriefing: A Faculty Development Guide

• There is a growing demand for faculty development opportunities for debriefing.
• The Promoting Excellence and Reflective Learning in Simulation (PEARLS) approach blends educational strategies during debriefing.
• This article describes common pitfalls encountered by educators during debriefing and highlights potential solutions.
• The Promoting Excellence and Reflective Learning in Simulation (PEARLS) Debriefing Checklist can be used to facilitate peer feedback of the debriefing process.

The Promoting Excellence and Reflective Learning in Simulation (PEARLS) blended approach to debriefing encourages educators to purposefully merge various debriefing strategies to tailor discussion to learner needs and learning context. While debriefing is a key component to simulation-based education, few resources exist to promote implementation of specific debriefing approaches. In response to growing demands from simulation programs and facilitators wishing to teach the PEARLS approach to debriefing, we offer a collection of resources to serve as a faculty development guide for implementation of PEARLS. In this article, we discuss common pitfalls and associated solutions when using PEARLS to facilitate debriefings and offer a PEARLS debriefing checklist that can serve as a tool for providing peer feedback on debriefing performance.