100 Specialists in Emergency Medical Care Completed Training in “Pre-Hospital Care Instructor” Course

Simulation training centre of Ternopil National Medical University hosted the course “Pre-hospital care instructor” for 100 specialists of the educational and training departments of the regional centres of emergency medical care and disaster medicine. Most of them, more than 70%, will become certified instructors who will be engaged in the practical training of their EMC colleagues after all of them (doctors and paramedics) have successfully completed the online theoretical training. In general, representatives of all regions of Ukraine mastered their practical skills.

The course “Pre-hospital care instructor” is an important stage of a large-scale educational project that continues the transformation of the emergency medical care system. The project was first implemented in February 2019 in cooperation between the International Red Cross and I. Horbachevsky Ternopil National Medical University.

These courses are part of the joint professional training of medical workers of emergency medical aid teams within the project of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and the World Bank, which ended on April 20, 2023. Experienced instructors of the simulation training centre and teachers of the Department of Emergency and Simulation Medicine, the Department of Paediatrics of the Faculty of Postgraduate Education, the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of TNMU (Professor Arsen Hudyma, Associate Professor Halyna Tsymbaliuk, Associate Professor Olha Dutchak, Associate Professor Emilia Burbela, Associate Professor V. Martyniuk, Assistant Professors Olha Prokhorenko, Antonina Chervatiuk, Yurii Denysiuk, Nargiz Javadova, Roman Huk) shared their knowledge and practical skills, as well as instructors of the All-Ukrainian Council of Resuscitation and EMC and the European Council of Resuscitation – doctors of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Olena Volovik and Liudmila Pavlenko.

Organizers used a combined approach to improve professional skills. The training was divided into three stages:

– Training of four instructors for each of the regional centres of emergency medical aid and disaster medicine in a live format with further training at work bases.

– Distance learning of all employees of the centres according to a specially developed program of the theoretical part of the course.

– Practical training of employees of EMC centres with their colleagues-instructors, trained at the first stage of the project.

In this way, all specialists in emergency medicine in all regions of Ukraine will be covered by the training – that’s almost 25 thousand doctors and paramedics. All of them received knowledge and skills based on world standards, which are extremely necessary when working in war conditions.

Live instructor trainings, which lasted for a month for each of the five groups of trainees, took place on the basis of the simulation training centre of the university. The training lasted 24 days and included the following cycles: “Management of a critical adult patient and advanced resuscitation measures in adults” – 8 days, “Management of a critical paediatric patient and advanced resuscitation measures in children” – 5 days, “Management of a critically injured victim with trauma” – 5 days, “Disaster medicine and tactical EMC” – 2 days, instructor skills – 3 days. The exam lasted one day, in which the attendees worked as EMC team leaders in three clinical simulated situations.

As part of the project, methodical recommendations were also developed for instructors to master practical skills and competencies in the three cycles indicated above. The recommendtaions were authored Professor Arsen Hudyma, Vitalii Kryliuk and teachers of the Department of Emergency and Simulation Medicine and the Department of Paediatrics of the Faculty of Postgraduate Education of TNMU. These materials will be provided to the instructors in a printed version and will become their “table book”.

As part of this project, participants could acquire a number of additional skills and abilities. In particular, from February 28 to March 5, 2023, practicing doctors and instructors from Portugal shared their experience at the course “Interhospital transportation of a critical patient” at the simulation training centre of Ternopil National Medical University. The team included Vitor Almeida (physician at the Tondela Hospital, Viseu), Karolina Mogos (physician at the Central Hospital of the Administrative Centre Tamega e Sousa), Ulyana Pidhirna (University Clinic of Faro (University of Algarve)), Olena Berezovska-Lorenzo (physician of the network of outpatient clinics of Estuario do Tagus, Central Administration of the Lisbon Region).

A training course in simulation medicine from doctors from Portugal covered such issues as organizational and legal aspects of medical transport of a critical patient; medical transportation of critical patients: safety and features; aeromedical transportation of critical patients; complications and conflicts during medical transportation of critical patients; medical transportation of critical paediatric patients (https://dev.tdmu.edu.ua/en/2023/03/07/doctors-from-portugal-shared-their-practical-experience-with-ukrainian-colleagues/).

During the workshop “Aspects of hemotransfusion in the system of emergency medical care” on January 20, 2023, Brian R. McMurray, an emergency medicine doctor and member of the American Medical Association, shared his knowledge and experience with the attendees (https://dev.tdmu.edu.ua/en/2023/02/03/workshop-aspects-of-blood-transfusion-in-the-emergency-health-care-system-was-held-at-tnmu/).

All project participants had the opportunity to practice in simulated clinical scenarios the specifics of the work of the EMC team in aggressive and stressful situations, which were organized for them by the teachers of the Psychiatry Department of TNMU.

This is not the first experience of the TNMU team to implement such training. Today, this instructor group started implementing another project within the framework of the cooperation agreement between TNMU and WHO regarding the work of disaster medicine teams.

TNMU Press Secretary, Yanina Chaikivska.

Photographs by Mykola Vasylechko.