A group of pediatricians from Children's National will be traveling to Lesotho to do Pediatric Simulation Training. The goal of this trip is to educate the pediatric residents through the Lesthoto Boston Health Alliance in Maseru and Leribe to be prepared for pediatric emergency situations that present to their clinic. This would include cardiac arrest, seizures, and traumatic brain injuries.
This project is for pediatric residents in Maseru and Leribe who are the only pediatricians for the entire country. The pediatric residency is new (within the last year) and through this project, we can ensure that they feel comfortable taking care of the pediatric population of the entire country. The country of Lesotho has a very high mortality rate of children under 5 years old and we hope to help decrease this statistic through our education, partnerships, and simulations.
The expected impact is for pediatricians to feel more confident in emergency pediatric situations and to continue our long standing partnership with the Boston health alliance to continue training and supporting future pediatricians. We hope that by running these simulations, we can then help pediatricians in Lesotho do these simulations around other areas of the country.
We worked specifically with physicians, medical officers, registrars, and nurses who work in Maseru, the capital region, and in Leribe, a more rural community. Our training was incredibly diverse and we were told by many of the participants how helpful and relevant our materials were. What I loved about this trip was that we were able to use supplies that were already present in the hospital on our low-fidelity simulation exercises to that it was realistic to what would happen in their settings and how they would manage it. By having the variety of cases and going through them with both nurses and doctors, it allowed for everyone to feel comfortable when a pediatric emergency came into their clinic/hospital/emergency department. It truly showed me the power of simulation and education and our hope is to continue these trainings to the point where the providers there feel comfortable teaching them themselves, creating a sustainable teacher model. I hope to go back and see how they have used these simulations in their own practices in the next few months!
