Simulation Training Featured in New Episode of NYC Health + Hospitals Podcast The Remedy
Using manikins, live actors, and virtual reality, simulation training gives doctors, nurses, and staff the chance to rehearse everything from trauma and cardiac arrest to opioid overdose The Remedy is available through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio and other platforms
Mar 10, 2026
New York, NY – NYC Health + Hospitals today released a new episode of its podcast, The Remedy, featuring leaders and health care providers from the nation’s largest municipal health care system. Season 3 Episode 3: Behind the Scenes at the Simulation Center covers how healthcare teams prepare for life-and-death emergencies. In this episode, host Dr. Michael Shen is joined by Dr. Michael Meguerdichian, Dr. Jacqueline Mahal, and Dr. Daniel Lugassy to discuss how simulation—using manikins, live actors, and virtual reality—gives doctors, nurses, and staff the chance to rehearse everything from trauma and cardiac arrest to opioid overdose. The health care system’s commitment to simulating real medical scenarios means not just better technical skills, but more equitable, compassionate, and culturally competent care for all. The newest simulation training focuses on Emergency Department providers and how they respond to patients living with opioid use disorder or at risk of overdose. The health care system also offers simulation training for obstetric emergencies using manikins and virtual reality. Season 3 Episode 3: Behind the Scenes at the Simulation Center is available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio and other podcast platforms.
“So much of medicine is in the interaction we have with our patients,” said The Remedy Host Michael Shen, MD. “This is such a cool program. I loved doing the simulation training and hearing feedback on the care I provided from actors.”
“Simulation gives us an opportunity to stop, reflect, and think about how we can provide better care in the field,” said NYC Health + Hospitals Chief System Medical Simulation Officer Michael Meguerdichian, MD, MPH-Ed. “For example, our Labor and Delivery simulation allows us to practice rare and highly dangerous situations like shoulder dystocia, postpartum hemorrhage, and maternal sepsis. Simulation allows us to practice at the highest standard of care.”
“Simulation allows us to cover a lot of key concepts in the care we provide, like treatment, technology, and stigmatizing language,” said NYC Health + Hospitals Assistant Medical Director of the Workforce Training Program in the Office of Behavioral Health Jacqueline Mahal, MD, MBA. “Working with actors allows our clinicians to feel in the moment. We’re supporting not only changes in treatment but also culture change in the care of patients who use opioids.”
“Giving a patient buprenorphine in the emergency department bridges them into treatment and supports better health outcomes, but it is a relatively new approach that was not taught in med school,” said NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst Medical Director of the Simulation Center Daniel Lugassy, MD. “Simulation training helps our providers learn and practice the latest developments in emergency medicine.”
NYC Health + Hospitals’ role as a public hospital system and the major safety net health care system for New York City offers a singular voice that no other health care podcast can. It shows how the public health care system provides care for all patients, regardless of their ability to pay; offers exciting ways to support patients, including new models of care to address behavioral health needs; and responds to the challenges that face New York City, including homelessness and the climate crisis. The host and guests are all employees of NYC Health + Hospitals with a special perspective on the work they do for patients.
Previous episodes of The Remedy cover the following topics:
Season 3
- Season 3 Episode 1: Healing Through Art: Creative Therapies at Rikers Island coversNYC Health + Hospitals/Correctional Health Services’ Creative Arts Therapy program, the oldest and largest jail-based arts therapy program in the nation.
- Season 3 Episode 2: Inside NYC’s Award-Winning Nursing Homes coversthe often-overlooked world of post-acute care.
Season 2
- Season 2 Episode 1: Community Health Workers covers these workers’ vital role in bridging the gap between medical care and social needs like housing, food, and transportation. With over 250 community health workers, NYC Health + Hospitals has built one of the largest programs in the nation.
- Season 2 Episode 2: How NYC Care Helps Uninsured New Yorkers highlights how the program provides health care to low-income and uninsured New Yorkers — regardless of immigration status or ability to pay.
- Season 2 Episode 3: Treating Violence covers the critical work the public health system’s Hospital Violence Interruption programs (HVIP) do to prevent violence, save lives, and heal communities.
- Season 2 Episode 4: The New Ellis Island highlights the historic work of NYC Health + Hospitals’ Arrival Center, a central intake facility for all newly arriving asylum seekers run by NYC Health + Hospitals’ Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center (HERRC) program.
- Season 2 Episode 5: Street Medicine in NYC covers the efforts of social workers the public health system’s Street Health Outreach + Wellness (SHOW) program, a street medicine program that provides medical care, behavioral health, and social services to New Yorkers who are experiencing homelessness or historically disconnected from care.
- Season 2 Episode 6: How AI Will Transform Healthcare in NYC covers how the public health system is using artificial intelligence to enhance patient care, improve efficiency, and support its workforce.
- Season 2 Episode 7: No Wrong Door: Addiction Care in NYC covers how NYC Health + Hospitals is treating substance use disorder with a comprehensive approach—whether someone walks into an emergency room, seeks help at a methadone clinic, or connects through community outreach.
Season 1
- Season 1 Episode 1: The Power of Primary Care features three primary care doctors on how working with their patients informs their roles in leadership at NYC Health + Hospitals.
- Season 1 Episode 2: Food is Medicine recognizes that plant-based eating is powerful medicine – it can lower high blood pressure and bring type 2 diabetes into remission – and considers how hospitals can help their patients pursue a plant-based diet.
- Season 1 Episode 3: Ready for the Next Pandemic considers how New York City’s public hospital system has consistently answered the challenge of Ebola, COVID-19, and mpox all while staying ahead of the latest health crisis.
- Season 1 Episode 4: Women’s Health considers how New York City’s public hospital system is expanding access to women’s health care in a time when many women across the country are facing restricted access to care.
- Season 1 Episode 5: Caring for the Newest New Yorkers covers how the staff at NYC Health + Hospitals are rising to the challenge of caring for the over 175,000 asylum seekers who have come to our city since spring 2022.
- Season 1 Episode 6: Caring for Homeless Patients covers how NYC Health + Hospitals serves its over 70,000 patients who are experiencing homelessness.
- Season 1 Episode 7: Helping Healers Heal covershow NYC Health + Hospitals supports the mental health of its more than 40,000 health care workers.
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About NYC Health + Hospitals
NYC Health + Hospitals is the largest municipal health care system in the nation serving more than a million New Yorkers annually in more than 70 patient care locations across the city’s five boroughs. A robust network of outpatient, neighborhood-based primary and specialty care centers anchors care coordination with the system’s trauma centers, nursing homes, post-acute care centers, home care agency, and MetroPlusHealth —all supported by 11 essential hospitals. Its diverse workforce of more than 46,000 employees is uniquely focused on empowering New Yorkers, without exception, to live the healthiest life possible. For more information, visit www.nychealthandhospitals.org and stay connected on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
