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Dr. Jennifer Arnold Professorship in Medical Simulation and Innovative Education

School of Medicine

Established in 2021 by an anonymous donor in honor of Jennifer Arnold, M.D., M.Sc.

The excellence of Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital is impacted by endowed chairs and professorships – these positions empower us to attract and retain the finest faculty and academic leaders and support their work as teachers, scholars, researchers, and clinicians in perpetuity. The Johns Hopkins All Children’s Foundation is privileged to work with donors that recognize the importance and impact of these endowed positions. The donor behind the creation of The Dr. Jennifer Arnold Endowed Professorship in Medical Simulation and Innovative Education is one such donor. While this donor wished to remain anonymous, they couldn’t think of a better way to name this endowed professorship by honoring JENNIFER ARNOLD, M.D., M.Sc., as she served as the inaugural director of the Center for Medical Simulation and Innovative Education at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital.  

Dr. Arnold is currently the program director of Immersive Design Systems at Boston Children’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.  

Dr. Arnold has been involved in simulation for over 14 years with experience building two pediatric simulation programs at prior institutions. Her areas of focus within simulation include use of simulation for evaluating new clinical spaces, team training, improving quality and patient safety, improving home care and skills for primary caregivers of children with medical complexities, and developing educational curricula for various departments throughout the hospital. 

Held by Alyssa Rake

ALYSSA RAKE, M.D., is the director of the Center for Medical Simulation and Innovative Education at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida. She also serves as assistant professor of anesthesia and critical care medicine, and as a pediatric critical care attending physician. She joined the hospital staff in 2023. 

Dr. Rake was previously medical director of the Las Madrinas Simulation Center at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. She was a member of the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine clinical faculty in pediatrics and an attending physician for the pediatric and cardiothoracic intensive units at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. 

She earned her medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine. She completed a pediatric residency at Baystate Medical Center Children’s Hospital in Springfield, Massachusetts, and a fellowship in pediatric critical care medicine at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. She completed the health care Leadership Academy at USC/Keck School of Medicine. 

Her leadership in medical simulation has included serving as course director, site director and simulation instructor for courses that were an integral training component for many different health care specialties and teams including physician residents and fellows, nurse residents, pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) nurses, transport and ECMO teams. She is a member of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare and its INSPIRE Network. 

Her research interests focus on teamwork models to improve communication and skills, CPR and simulation-based education and assessment. She received grant support for projects that included development of outcome-based simulation research and multidisciplinary simulation curriculum for trainees; improving teamwork with simulation in the trauma bay; using leaderboards to improve CPR simulation practice among health care professionals; and the use of barrier devices during CPR for COVID.