We plan to run 2 weeks of educational sessions for a group of nurses, midwives, physicians and medical students in Morocco. The sessions will cover neonatal resuscitation (Helping Babies Breathe program) and common pediatric triage scenarios (WHO's ETAT program). Our goal is to "train the trainer," and provide the experience and skills necessary for our participants to not only carry out these skills in their daily practice, but to train their colleagues in their own institutions for the betterment of their patients.
The population who will benefit includes the audience of nurses, midwives, physicians, and medical students. However, we hope that the health professionals that we teach will then become experts themselves, and able to implement these programs in their local institutions. The goal is to benefit patients in multiple areas of Morocco by building local capacity within their own staff.
The goal is for the skills and impact that we have while in country to continue after our return, with those health professionals teaching others and continuing to build skills and local capacity. There will also be ongoing connection between our institution and the groups we teach there, with possibilities of future sessions. On a personal note, I hope to learn about the setup and organization of such a program, with the goal of being able to expand it to a future trip to Nicaragua, where I have a longstanding global health connection.
We had a wonderful time working to provide training for providers in Casablanca! We partnered with Operation Smile Morocco, and were able to do multiple trainings with different groups of people, including Helping Babies Breathe (HBB), Pediatric Emergency Asssessment and Triage (PETAT), and Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS). The work we were able to do together has enabled these local providers to both improve their own care of pediatric patients, teach their colleagues, and also provide care to other areas of the Middle East and North Africa region with Operation Smile's outreach trips.
