This paper focuses on the essential capacity of healthcare professionals to learn from experience and explores practical strategies for cultivating reflective learners and educators in the context of simulation-based nursing education. Drawing on experiential learning theory, the paper shows how intentional educational practices grounded in reflection can foster sustained cycles of learning. It is argued that such practices form a vital foundation for generating continuous, interconnected learning in clinical education.

At the 6th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Nursing Society for Simulation and Learning, a roundtable session was held under the theme “Bridging Learning from Nursing Students to Novice Nurses.” In this session, nursing educators, clinical nurses who support novice nurses, and nursing department education coordinators presented their educational practices and challenges from their respective standpoints. The session provided an opportunity to exchange ideas on concrete strategies to bridge basic nursing education with clinical practice. Based on the results of post-session questionnaires and discussions, key issues were identified: a persistent gap between education and practice, insufficient information and communication technology (ICT) literacy and basic social skills among novice nurses, and the need for enhanced teaching competencies among nurse educators. The session highlighted the importance of promoting mutual understanding and collaboration between educational and clinical settings, encouraging continuous professional development for educators, and creating ongoing opportunities for interdisciplinary dialogue and information sharing.

In this paper, we focus on the difficulties faced by theater troupe members when beginning work as simulated patients, and we consider how to improve support and develop their understanding of the situation. A questionnaire survey was conducted for 20 female members of a senior musical theater group to assess the challenges they experienced while acting as simulated patients in a simulation exercise in chronic care nursing. Comparison of the mean scores for difficulty items revealed the following concerns with higher than average scores: “superimposing my own experiences onto those of the patient in the scenario,” “acting out the role of a patient with an unfamiliar disease,” “imagining the treatment situation and environment,” “empathizing with the emotions of a patient with a disease,” “being concerned that my comments might influence students’ learning,” and “being overly considerate of students’ perspectives, which affects my performance.” These findings highlight the importance of providing early explanations and requests for participation to help troupe members develop a clear understanding of the patient role and the care they will receive. Additionally, training that leverages strengths in acting and feedback, adjustments to the environment to facilitate relaxed performances, and further support to enhance awareness of the educational role are important considerations.