The Procedures Course
This week I participated as a learner in The Procedures Course. The course is run as a collaboration between The Alfred Trauma Unit, Alfred Emergency & Trauma Centre, National Trauma Research Institute and Monash University. It is a cadaver-based ‘hands on’ procedures course designed to enable emergency and critical care physicians to develop the mastery necessary to perform life-sight-and-limb-saving procedures when the time comes.
I’ve been involved in many courses as a participant, facilitator, and convenor. This course ranks among the very best. The pacing of the course is spot on, participant-to-cadaver and participant-to-faculty ratios were excellent, sub-specialty experts were on hand for Q&A sessions, and the extensive online resources accompanying the course were top notch. The resources include high-quality procedure videos, concise yet thorough treatments of the procedures covered, and an excellent audio podcast.
The best thing about this course is the procedures themselves. You get to work through them on real human anatomy at your own pace, with the opportunity to freely discuss all aspects of each procedure with expert colleagues. For some procedures, like lateral canthotomy and cantholysis, there simply is no adequate ‘mannikin’ substitute for the real thing. Procedures covered include:
- orbital decompression (lateral cantholysis and canthotomy)
- emergency craniotomy (burr holes)
- emergency surgical airway
- transvenous pacing
- resuscitative vascular access (IO, RICC lines, and Mac lines)
- pleural decompression and drainage
- resuscitative thoracotomy
- escharotomy
- pre-hospital limb amputation
- emergency hysterotomy
The good news is that you can take advantage of the Procedures podcast even if you haven’t enrolled in the course. I highly recommend it.
Upcoming course dates will be announced on TheProceduresCourse.com website soon — a little bird tells me the next course will be in Melbourne in November 2017.
Disclaimer: I have no conflict of interest. I am an employee of Alfred Health (in the Intensive Care Unit, which is not affiliated with this course) and I have an adjunct position with Monash University (with no involvement in the course).
Chris is an Intensivist and ECMO specialist at the Alfred ICU in Melbourne. He is also a Clinical Adjunct Associate Professor at Monash University. He is a co-founder of the Australia and New Zealand Clinician Educator Network (ANZCEN) and is the Lead for the ANZCEN Clinician Educator Incubator programme. He is on the Board of Directors for the Intensive Care Foundation and is a First Part Examiner for the College of Intensive Care Medicine. He is an internationally recognised Clinician Educator with a passion for helping clinicians learn and for improving the clinical performance of individuals and collectives.
After finishing his medical degree at the University of Auckland, he continued post-graduate training in New Zealand as well as Australia’s Northern Territory, Perth and Melbourne. He has completed fellowship training in both intensive care medicine and emergency medicine, as well as post-graduate training in biochemistry, clinical toxicology, clinical epidemiology, and health professional education.
He is actively involved in in using translational simulation to improve patient care and the design of processes and systems at Alfred Health. He coordinates the Alfred ICU’s education and simulation programmes and runs the unit’s education website, INTENSIVE. He created the ‘Critically Ill Airway’ course and teaches on numerous courses around the world. He is one of the founders of the FOAM movement (Free Open-Access Medical education) and is co-creator of litfl.com, the RAGE podcast, the Resuscitology course, and the SMACC conference.
His one great achievement is being the father of three amazing children.
On Twitter, he is @precordialthump.
| INTENSIVE | RAGE | Resuscitology | SMACC