Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and Texas Children’s Hospital have partnered with the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Belize since 2015 to offer continuing medical education (CME) to physician and nursing staff at public hospitals across the country for management of emergency medical conditions. The World Health Organization (WHO)’s Emergency Triage Assessment and Treatment (ETAT) course, a short course focused on pediatric triage and immediate stabilization, was delivered to nearly 400 healthcare workers (HCWs) between 2016 and 2020. Following an interruption in training activities due to COVID, an additional 200 HCWs were trained between 2022 and 2024. More recent CME activities have focused on management of emergency conditions in adults and there has been a gap in ETAT trainings.
The MOH has recently developed new national triage guidelines in keeping with principals taught in ETAT and has requested assistance in re-initiating ETAT trainings to aide implementation of these guidelines. Refresher trainings will be provided for previous trainers with incorporation of the new triage guidelines and train-the-trainer (ToT) sessions will be conducted to facilitate widespread dissemination. The goal of this trip is to begin the new training initiative starting at the country’s national referral hospital, Karl Hausner Memorial Hospital (KHMH), in Belize City.
Providing ETAT training to HCWs paired with implementation of new triage guidelines and protocols at KHMH is expected to benefit children seeking care at KHMH. Training the trainers will also allow for regional, and eventually, national spread of the programming to HCWs at public facilities.
There are no pediatric emergency medicine physicians in Belize. As a pediatric emergency medicine physician, I am an expert in emergency pediatric assessment and management. Providing this training allows me to share my expertise and answer questions for other trainers who will then share this knowledge with other HCWs.
This is an existing partnership between TCH/BCM, the MOH, and KHMH There will be ongoing contact between institutions and monthly trips between August and December of 2026 to support and reinforce the learning.
An ETAT refresher course was delivered to 16 people who had previously taught ETAT but have not taught in the past 2 years. Trainers were a mix of physician and nursing staff from KHMH and the Western and Northern health regions. Best practices in adult learning were reviewed along with discussions of the most difficult to understand and teach portions of ETAT. Brainstorming sessions for how to better incorporate triage and stabilization into daily clinical activities were held. Trainers were prepared to engage in a new wave of trainings to be held over the next coming months.
Additionally, a lecture on management of acute management of pediatric seizures in the emergency and inpatient pediatric settings was delivered as a continuing education activity to physician staff at KHMH.
