By: Dr. Stacey Chamberlain, Development Director, Co-Founder

​It is so exciting to announce that in September 2017 GEC finally started the first class of Emergency Care Practitioners that will receive Diplomas upon completion of their training program from our partner university, Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST)! This is a landmark accomplishment that will greatly improve the sustainability of our programming as it truly integrates our training program into the local educational system. 
 
Imagine if you went to nursing or medical school, and at the end, you didn’t receive an actual diploma and a nationally recognized degree. You wouldn’t be able to use your life saving clinical skills because employers would not recognize your expertise without that piece of paper. So after many years of fine-tuning our curriculum and working with our Ugandan partners including Masaka Regional Referral Hospital, MUST, and the Uganda Ministry of Health, this roll-out is a big step in the creation of a workforce of Ugandan emergency practitioners that will have the skills to treat acutely sick and injured patients. 

We are thrilled to welcome our first class of Emergency Care Practitioner Diploma trainees: 
Joyce Nakajja
Winifred Auma
Mohammad Kyambadde 
Edward Kasiira
Henry Kagaba
Harriet Ijangolet
Jane Frances Birungi 
John Twesigye
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​Teddy truly captures what it means to be an Emergency Care Practitioner (ECP) and the positive impact it has on the community and herself. The program developed by Global Emergency Care gives Teddy the confidence and ability to quickly identify and treat patients with life threatening conditions. Before her training to be an ECP, she would have to wait for orders on what to do in such time critical medical situations that could’ve led to grave outcomes. Teddy now feels equipped to assess a patient and provide the right treatment. These skills go a long way in developing a relationship with a community and giving people the reassurance that their lives do matter, especially in time sensitive emergencies. Teddy’s most memorable case involved a 9-year boy who was involved in a road traffic accident. He came in short of breath and in distress. Teddy suspected pneumothorax (collapsed lung) after examination of the child, and performed a needle decompression. This allowed the child to stabilize and recover quickly. With her fast thinking and expert skills, the boy was released four days later. Ultimately, ECP’s are able to save lives by effectively working under the pressures of emergency medical situations. 

Teddy is proud of her work as an ECP. She emphasizes, "I have the knowledge, skills, and determination to take care of emergencies, not like most nurses who wait for orders on what to do. It’s also exciting because I know what to do, and a big thanks to the GECC board and all those who shared knowledge with us. I love being an ECP and I don’t regret taking the training".

Watch the short video below where Teddy tells about her most memorable case - saving the life of a 9 year old boy.

Written by: Rashidah Nambaziira, Masaka Program Director, GEC

​Recently, Global Emergency Care (GEC) was honored to collaborate with Imaging The World (ITW) on a 2-day emergency care training. Imaging The World’s mission is to bring accessible, affordable, high quality ultrasound imaging to remote and underserved communities. ITW has been doing similar work to GEC - seeking to create a sustainable educational intervention and incorporating it into the Uganda medical education system. In addition to research and outreach programs, ITW offers a Point-of-Care (POC) ultrasound curriculum that focuses on OBGYN ultrasound diagnostics, and maternal/fetal care.  Partnering with GEC, the ITW providers wished to expand their knowledge of general topics in emergency medicine in order to use POC Testing for acutely ill and injured patients.   
 
POC ultrasound has served to be one of the best additions to emergency rooms at hospitals where we operate because it is a fast, convenient, and inexpensive way to make an accurate diagnosis. These factors go a long way in resource-limited settings, like Masaka Hospital and rural health centers, where patients often can’t afford the cost (including travel) to town for a formal ultrasound. Additionally, acutely ill patients often need intensive resuscitation and monitoring. Thus, leaving the hospital to get an ultrasound at a clinic not only delays their care, but also can be dangerous as well. By identifying intra-abdominal bleeding from trauma or a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, a POC Focused Assessment with Sonography in Trauma (FAST) exam in the Emergency Department can mean the difference between life and death in Uganda. For these reasons, and evidence in improved patient care, POC ultrasound is a big part of the Global Emergency Care (GEC) curriculum. 

GEC-trained Emergency Care Practitioners (ECPs) conducted the training with the purpose of expanding the ultrasound skills of the ITW-trained staff to include applications of POC ultrasound in trauma (eFAST); assessment of fluid status in shock patients using IVC ultrasound; lung ultrasound to diagnose pneumonia; and pelvic ultrasound in suspected ectopic pregnancy.
 
It was a very successful training to both organizations, as both teams learned a lot from each other. “It was really fun, and helped boost my confidence,” said Elizabeth, one of the GEC trainers. ITW brought a diverse team composed of doctors, sonographers, nurses, and clinical officers. Our ECPs are used to teaching nurses, so, training mixed cadres presented a new exciting challenge for them, which boosted their confidence.
 
“It’s inspirational to work with people doing similar work, and really inspiring that they were actually taking the effort to learn, engage, and ask questions,” said Alfunsi, an ECP trainer from GEC. The ECPs felt that the ITW team was humble and a delight to teach, which made the training a success, and left them eager to work with ITW again in the future.   

In addition to the dissemination of clinical knowledge and ultrasound skills, the GEC team enjoyed the sessions. “We loved having them here,” Elizabeth exclaimed. The ITW team was very outgoing; the after-training meals were full of intellectual and inspirational conversations that left us exhilarated from interacting with similarly minded people with a similar goal of expanding quality patient care to Uganda. There was also a noticeable comradery between the two teams during and after the training sessions, and I believe the 2-day GEC-ITW training collaboration will have a positive lasting impact on us all.
 
This collaboration was the first of many, and we hope for many more with other similar NGOs, as we continue in our mission to reduce disparities in global health by collaborating to create access to quality emergency care in resource limited settings.

By: Hans Hurt, MD, GECC Volunteer Physician

Simulation has been a great addition to the standard lecture format of teaching the Emergency Care Practitioners (ECPs), and has provided an opportunity to observe the wide skill set they have developed. There are no high tech simulators in such a low resource setting, but the ECPs manage to get in the mindset with improvised bottles of bug repellent to mimic Ultrasound motions, a USB lanyard for an oxygen hose, and pens to represent needles for chest decompression. When there was down time in between patients, we had the opportunity to use the Emergency Department to use the normal equipment and run through the progressions of a trauma assessment and FAST ultrasound exams. It was great to see the ECPs’ thought processes and be able to help them refine parts of their physical exam and optimize their Ultrasound imaging.

Towards the end of the month we worked at transitioning some of the senior ECP’s into taking on the leadership role with the simulations. I was impressed by what they observed and the helpful feedback they were able to provide the Juniors. The ECP’s were excited to learn the new techniques and get the focused time to practice.

Advance Suturing Skills Lab
By: Hans Hurt, MD, GECC Volunteer Physician

Trauma and wound care injuries have been a huge portion of the patients that I have seen arrive to the Emergency Department at Nyakibale on a daily basis. Nyakibale is a small, district hospital in rural southwestern Uganda not too far from the borders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. What we know of health care in the US is nonexistent here. Families are extremely lucky if they possess the means to see a doctor before things take a turn for the worse.

It has been rare for a day to pass without patients arriving with complex scalp, lip, eye lid, ear, and tendon lacerations from “boda-boda” (motorcycle) or “panga” (machete) accidents. In the U.S., many of these complex wounds would be treated by a consulting an Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor, Orthopedist, or Ophthalmologist – dedicated specialists for these emergencies. But in Nyakibale in rural Uganda, there are no specialists, and in fact there are no emergency physicians whatsoever in the entire country. The closest specialists are three hours away in Mbarara and the majority of patients cannot afford to travel there or pay the additional specialist fees. The ECP’s must develop an amazingly broad skill set at repairing these complex wounds that most Emergency Medicine physicians in the United States would feel uncomfortable closing on their own.

In order to lead the advanced suturing workshop, I had to first broaden my own skill set and fill in knowledge gaps for the procedures I often ask the specialists to perform. I had to look outside of the standard Emergency Medicine literature as a common recommendation was to consult a specialist without giving any details of the procedure.

The Junior ECP’s were excited to learn the new techniques and get the focused time to practice. Later that afternoon they were already implementing the new corner stitch to fix a scalp laceration and were carefully reattaching a partially amputated ear after a machete attack.