Medics put through their paces in simulation exercise

Out of the classroom and off to hospital… ER24 Ambulance Emergency Assistant (AEA) students were recently put through their paces in a new patient simulation exercise.

ER24’s Training Academy puts staff through rigorous training to ensure they are up to date with evidence-based best practice medicine.

While doing so, the Academy also tries to establish new ways of ensuring their staff remain the best in the field.

A first of its kind in the country, students were recently required to start simulations (a number of exercises held over three days), in a classroom environment. They had to assess the “patients”, treat them, put them in ambulances and proceed to hospital. A number of different scenarios were presented to the students. On arrival at the hospital, the students handed over their patients and the simulation ended only once the patients were transferred into the hospital’s care.

Jill Lithgow, the ER24 Education Training and Development Department manager, said the idea was to test if the students will be able to put all the knowledge they acquired into practice in a real life situation.

“Once graduated, they will not be treating patients in a classroom. They will be treating patients on a scene and in an ambulance. These medics will be handing their patients over to medical professionals at a hospital. We thought it would be beneficial to put the students in a ‘real life situation’ to test their abilities. The more realistic the training, the greater the transfer of knowledge to students. The exercise went well. It was a great opportunity for the students to learn about the advantages of teamwork and to know where they fit in to this emergency care team,” said Lithgow.

Two Joburg North Advanced Life Support paramedics joined the students and “treated the patients” as well.

“It was great to see the teamwork. The simulation was filmed giving students and training staff the opportunity to assess how much of what was discussed in the classroom was retained. Mediclinic Sandton partnered with us on this initiative, as did the ER24 Specialised Medical Services Department. All the doctors and nursing staff on duty applauded the initiative and remarked that it was an invaluable experience for everyone involved,” said Lithgow.

Christell de Lange, the unit manager at Mediclinic Sandton’s Emergency Centre, said having the students go to the hospital was a brilliant idea and a good learning experience for all involved.

“It almost makes the simulation feel ‘real’ as there was a nursing sister and doctor in attendance asking questions they would under normal circumstances. I do not think they expected this. It was a good surprise. The scenarios/cases presented were interesting and made us realise how important assessment in the Emergency Centre is as this can steer management in a completely different direction as compared to pre-hospital management,” she said.

She added that the simulation resulted in a positive outcome for all staff involved. “We think that the same could be done by incorporating nursing staff (in similar cases), starting with a phone call of estimated time of arrival and information on what is wrong with the patient. Nursing staff can then prepare the resuscitation room and manage the patient. This was a good exercise for both doctors and nursing staff. We realised that we all have a scope of practice that we need to abide by. We think that this could be done in between courses with EMS staff as a continuous professional development programme. It is very easy to slip into bad habits and forget some of the protocols you do not use on a regular basis,” said De Lange.

Lithgow said the simulation exercise will be formalised and become a standardised component of ER24’s teaching and learning philosophy.