Approximately 35 rural health care professionals took part in UNMC’s annual emergency medicine course for rural providers, a two and a half-day course held last week.
This year, there was an increase in the number of pediatric sessions, with Children’s Hospital & Medical Center partnering with UNMC by staffing three lecture sessions and half of one lab.
“In general, physicians are most uncomfortable with the pediatric population, because they don’t get a lot of training in that area, unless you’re a pediatrician,” said course co-director Richard Walker, M.D., a professor of emergency medicine. “Children in general are pretty healthy, so we get very little experience. This gives the person out there in the rural area, where you might see a sick kid once every six months, the expertise to deal with that situation.”
Russ Buzalko, Ph.D., course co-director and assistant professor of emergency medicine, said past participants have requested more pediatric content.
“We’re reaching out, as we’re supposed to as part of our UNMC charter – providing the resources, the expertise, the knowledge to those who are serving rural Nebraska,” he said.
Dr. Walker agreed that it was important for UNMC to reach out to the rural practitioner.
“We concentrate on airway management, including surgical airways — a cricothyrotomy — a technique you might do once every 10 years,” he said. “But we also cover different intubation techniques. We concentrate on trying to give them tips and tricks to deal with that rare situation in an efficient manner.”
Bree Almgren, a nurse practitioner from Spencer, Iowa, said the course hones useful skills.
“With rural medicine, you never know what’s going to walk through the door,” said Almgren, who works at a rural clinic and covers a critical access hospital in the ER. “I don’t have any backup; I’m the only provider on call. So it’s good to have these skills, because everything we’re covering is high-risk, and you need to know what you’re doing and act pretty quick. It’s a good refresher, doing some skills I haven’t done in a while.”
Thomas Deegan, M.D., an associate professor of pediatrics/emergency medicine who is officed at Children’s, also was on hand to serve as a course co-director.
“Pediatric illness and injuries create a lot of anxiety for outlying emergency departments in every state,” he said. “So the more information you get, the better things run. It’s been exciting to be partnering with Children’s to put this course on.”
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