Faculty interviews. Analysis of these data revealed themes related to fidelity, student support and debrief-ing. Faculty found both positive and negative aspects to fidelity during implementation. For example, one commented, “It was good to have a faculty person as the voice of the patient . . . students needed responses in the moment to have dialogue . . . mannequin-canned phrases would not have worked as well.” Environ-mental fidelity was seen as the biggest challenge; fac-ulty noted that not having real-life resources such as an automated drug dispensing machine presented a chal-lenge to students.
Faculty indicated that they chose to give additional support when students were “struggling” and “not get-ting to the heart of the matter.” One stated that they provided support when the “information given was not adequate” for problem solving. Faculty mentioned that determining how much support to provide was not a simple decision. For example, one commented “I did-n’t want to give too much information [so] I was slow to respond . . . it was difficult to balance because I couldn’t do [patient] movements to show I was still awake.” Similarly, enacting the role of provider came with difficult decisions regarding student support. One faculty stated, “How far do you go and let them not be successful? You don’t want to hold their hand and lead them down a path, but it would be natural for a pro-vider to ask these questions.”