PARAMEDIC and medical students were faced with an overdose scenario and a trauma case during simulated emergency exercises on Thursday.
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The action took place at Rotary Lodge and the nearby University of NSW Rural Medical School.
Charles Sturt University paramedic students joined forces with UNSW Rural Medical School students to hone their skills and gain insights into each other’s professional world.
The first simulation scenario involved a woman who had overdosed on medication and drugs. The team, during the second exercise, treated a woman with open compound leg fracture, a head injury and a hip/pelvis injury after a fall from a balcony.
Brigid Hall and Rebecca Eakin were the volunteer patients.
They were treated at the scene and taken in the CSU ambulance to the simulated emergency department at the UNSW Rural Medical School. UNSW Rural Medical School simulation educator Donna Hughes said the exercises allowed the medical students to suspend belief and become paramedics for the day. The simulations also gave the paramedic students an opportunity to conduct the clinical handover of a patient in emergency.
“We really wanted to increase, in an undergraduate capacity, the relationship and understanding of each other’s roles, so they can continue it on at postgraduate level,” Mrs Hughes said.
The emergency scenarios were streamed live to the UNSW Rural Medical School where emergency medicine consultant Dr Digby Hone and senior lecturer in paramedicine at CSU in Port Macquarie Joe Acker staged a debrief. Mr Acker said the exercises aimed to provide a realistic situation to challenge the paramedic and medical students to make difficult decisions in high pressure, complex environments.
“We also want to give them an opportunity to hone their inter-professional and communications skills to enhance the ability to work in multi-disciplinary environments when they graduate,” he said.
CSU lecturer in paramedics in Port Macquarie Tania Johnston, UNSW Rural Medical School simulation educator Kellie Strahorn and NSW Ambulance paramedic Josh Smyth also took part.