Practice Makes Perfect
October, 2010
Medical residents and students worked to treat patients with heart attacks, broken bones, and breathing problems for four days last month.
The terrible injuries were mock, not real. The patients, too, were mock: lifelike mannequins used to train physicians and students in the latest techniques in emergency medicine.
The setting was Hamad International Training Center where Khaled Said, M.D, assistant director of the emergency medicine residency program at HMC had invited faculty physicians from the Global Emergency Medicine Program at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York to provide a review and update course for HMC medical residents and students.
“We wanted to expose our residents and students to a different kind of experience,” says Dr. Said who co-directed the course with Hina Ghory, M.D., an attending physician at the Weill Cornell Medical College’s Department of Emergency Medicine in New York and a faculty member of its global Emergency Medicine Program. Dr. Ghory is also an instructor in medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York and in Qatar.
“We invited experts from Weill Cornell Medical College where the emergency medicine specialty is well established,” says Dr. Said. “We are just beginning to establish this specialty in the Middle East.” The emergency medicine residency program was established at HMC 10 years ago, he adds.
“The training course is part of our vision of becoming a center of excellence,” says Dr. Abdullatif Al-Khal, director of medical education at HMC. “We are working very hard to ensure our residency programs meet the standards of the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). Our collaboration with WCMC-Q is an important part of our effort to obtain accreditation, so I hope this is the beginning of many joint activities,” he says.
During the course, mornings were devoted to lectures while the afternoons were spent at different skill stations practicing specific techniques and procedures, such as ventilation using a bag valve mask, laryngoscopy, radiology, and ultrasound.
“The simulation with mannequins allows physicians and students to become familiar with procedures in a non-threatening environment before they have to try them out on real patients in a true emergency,” says Dr. Robert Anthony, attending physician at a Frisbie Memorial Hospital’s Emergency Department in New Hampshire. “It is a great teaching tool.” Dr. Anthony has joined the global emergency medicine faculty on several of their international teaching activities, including the course in Doha.
“The affiliation between Hamad Medical Corporation and WCMC-Q has been in place for the last five years and it is growing from strength to strength,” says Dr. Javaid Sheikh, dean of WCMC-Q medical school. “We expect to see more of these joint programs in the future.”
