VCU School of Medicine Cuenca Ecuador 2016: 2016-07-17

Friday, July 22, 2016

Implementation Project Video from Cuencan Government

We made the news in Cuenca! Check out this PR bit from the Ministry of Public Health, the government branch in charge of Ecuador's free healthcare system, on what we were helping them to accomplish. Training went well and the project will continue now into the post study process. More updates and thoughts on training will be posted soon.

Leonardo and Victor, two of our favorite ambulance ride-along workers. Some abulances have doctors, such as Leo, on board.

Teaching with Dr. Alberto Martinez, our Ecuadorean mentor, who is just incredible. Here he is patiently answering some of many complaints ambulance personnel brought up about the system during the training

Jeremy as the patient for our Glasgow training

We were pleased with how ready and willing to learn everyone was in the training

The training team with the Ministry of Public Health representatives

The students we were privileged to work with and now miss dearly

Ministry Approved

Also, a quick quote from the World Health Organization on communication in a pre-hospital setting: "Necessary components of planning of systems for trauma management include communication and transport. Communication takes into account the radio communication between EMS units and receiving hospitals. Prior notification by such radio communication allows trauma team activation and preparation for immediate care of severely injured patients upon arrival."
http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/42565/1/9241546409_eng.pdf

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Adios data collection, hello training

With the data collection behind us, the second leg of our project consists of the training class. This three hour class is broken into three segments: 1) MIVT 2) Radio communication 3) Scene Management. And we're responsible for the first part. (To read up more about this training - go to http://cuandoencuenca.blogspot.com/2016/07/you-want-us-to-do-what.html) Two classes a day, five days this week. This equals ten classes that'll train the entire EMS personnel of Cuenca. Ready..set...go!

Everyone was really receptive and interested in the material, but more to come soon about the classes!

Caro, Mark, and Jeremy all fired up for the first day of Training

Project Description

Previous research in Cuenca revealed a perceived lack of correct MIVT communication between emergency personnel and physicians at the hospital. Our goal is to objectively identify where the problems exist at three stages of the communication tree:

1) Ambulance to ECU911 central

2) ECU911 alerting hospital of the impending patient

3) Ambulance presentation of MIVT to Physician upon arrival

Following the initial research, we will assist LATE with an MIVT refresher course for pre-hospital teams. More detailed information can be found in the posts.

Who We Are

We are second year medical students from VCU School of Medicine interested in trauma and emergency medicine looking to make a difference abroad through our research.

Mark Hopkins: Mark is from Logan, Utah and gained an interest in international medicine by going on four service and medical missions to Mexico, Peru, and Ecuador growing up. Aside from a passion for trip planning, his Spanish fluency, undergrad business background, and passion for Latino culture have been vital for the team's success.

Jeremy Carter: Jeremy is from Anchorage, Alaska and is a proficient world traveler. He is fluent in Arabic (and hopefully soon, Spanish) and has previously done analytical work for a memory and cognition laboratory as well as the DOJ.

Elissa Trieu: Elissa is from Richmond, Virginia and started working as an EMT in 2011. She speaks Cantonese and has studied Spanish in the past. She has trauma research experience after an internship with the VCU Injury and Violence Prevention Program.