As part of my fellowship in global emergency medicine I will travel to our collaborative site in Malawi to teach EM providers how we practice in the US, but with modifications made to recognize their resource limitations. This training is meant to improve care in Malawi for locals of the hospital site and ultimately Malawians more broadly as the training takes hold and staff can share the knowledge we impart with others. We hope this training will be a small support in the elevation of EM abroad. I will also be teaching residents from our program EM and global health skills so that they may be part of the future work to come.
The local population by way of better triage, diagnostics, and modalities taught to the local EM staff. Malawi is a site that my program has worked with in the past and they feel comfortable identifying gaps for us to train them on.
We expect to improve care for local patients and improved national standards of care over time with our collaborative relationship. It will also be great for me to learn other methods that they employ there for potential resource limitations that I will experience in my work internationally and also closer to home and am looking forward to teaching this to our residents in-country and also in SC.
Pictured here is one of two resuscitation rooms in the Adult Emergency Trauma Centre (AETC) at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH) in Blantyre, Malawi during a rare period when it was briefly unoccupied. Usually there are 3-4 patients and their family members in this space. Our global health team been volunteering here primarily to assist in training the registrars (residents) who are learning Emergency Medicine, which is a developing field in Malawi. It's been an exciting thing to be a part of and I'm looking forward to the next trip!
Some action shots from airway simulation with the Emergency Medicine registrars. Opportunities like this to practice complex resuscitation procedures are integral to learning Emergency Medicine--saving lives when it really counts. *Photos with permission from the registrars pictured.
