Clinical expertise
Simulation and education
Dr Margarita Burmester’s interests are in improving patient care and safety through using simulation to teach inter-professional teamwork and systems improvement. In 2008, she founded the SPRinT (Simulated interPRofessional Team Training) programme at Royal Brompton Hospital in order to enhance patient care and safety in the frontline clinical environment through high-level, high stakes in situ interprofessional simulated team training. She is the director of the SPRinT programme.
This award-winning, patient safety educational programme now trains over 100 interprofessional staff from across the Trust each year and delivers facilitator courses for 50-60 professionals a year in the human factor, leadership, team training and simulation regionally and nationally.
Dr Burmester is a founding member of the clinical skills and simulation centre (CSSC), a specialist medical education and training centre which is a joint venture between Royal Brompton and Royal Marsden hospitals.
Dr Burmester was a board of director member of the International Pediatric Simulation Symposia & Workshops (IPSSW) from 2011-14 and was secretary and research lead for the Paediatric Intensive Care Society Education, Learning and Simulation (PICSELS) group 2010-14.
Dr Burmester has been an executive member of ASPiH (association for simulated practice in healthcare) since 2016, is currently simulation co-chair for health education north west London (HENWL) and furthermore she sits on the simulation working group of the European Society of Paediatric & Neonatal Intensive Care (ESPNIC). She contributed to the Health Education England strategy for simulation-based education 2018 and has been a judge of education and training for the Health Service Journal (HSJ) Patient’s Safety Awards since 2016.
She is a member of the Academy of Medical Educators, and an executive board member of the Association for Simulated Practice in Healthcare (ASPiH).
Clinical lead
Dr Burmester leads a team of 10 consultant intensivists and contributes to national strategy through membership of the national paediatric critical care clinical reference group and in her role as vice president of the Paediatric Intensive Care Society (PICS). She has been president of the paediatric section of the Royal Society of Medicine since 2018.
Locations
Our specialist provides care at these locations:
Biography
Dr Margarita Burmester is the lead consultant paediatric intensivist at Royal Brompton Hospital, where she treats private and NHS patients.
As part of her training, Dr Margarita Burmester studied at the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children, Canada, and Great Ormond Street Hospital, London.
She has been a consultant at Royal Brompton Hospital since 2002, with a two-year sabbatical as a consultant staff member at Boston Children’s Hospital.
She completed her postgraduate certification in clinical education in 2016 when she became a fellow of the higher education authority (FHEA) and a member of the academy of medical educators (MAcadMEd)
Research interests and publications
Dr Margarita Burmester has researched innovative adult learning techniques and how they can translate into clinical effectiveness and improvement.
She has published multiple articles, delivered numerous lectures and workshops, and is a co-recipient of a Wellcome Trust award for research into micro-communication in teamwork.
Dr Burmester has led innovative research into new models targeted to simulated cardiac emergency training, including the patented Harley and TOM open chest models. These have been used to deliver new quality improvement strategies in patient care and safety. She has been a Q fellow (Health Foundation) since 2017.
She has contributed to international research into paediatric early warning scores, trialling methodologies to mitigate clinical deterioration.
Teaching
Dr Margarita Burmester is a senior lecturer at the National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London.
