Australasian general surgical training and emergency medical teams: a review

Abstract

Emergency medical teams (EMTs) have provided surgical care in sudden‐onset disasters in low‐ and middle‐income countries. General surgeons have been heavily involved in many EMTs due to their traditional broad set of surgical skills and experience. With the increased subspecialization of general surgical training in many high‐income countries, including Australia and New Zealand, finding general surgeons with adequately broad experience is becoming more challenging. Furthermore, it is now considered standard for EMTs deploying to a sudden‐onset disaster to have undergone credentialing, demonstrating sufficient training of their deployed members. The purpose of this review was to highlight the challenges and potential solutions facing those involved in training and recruiting general surgeons for EMTs in Australasia.

Rethinking the tiered trauma team response: A case‐series study in a regional trauma centre

“…This comes at the potential cost to regular clinical exposure to the trauma environment, particular in smaller centres or those with less close Consultant supervision. [18][19][20] This training imperative may be partially mitigated through regular multidisciplinary TT training which can improve team function. 21,22 Refinement of the trauma activation response process; updating whole body CT protocol and increased TT trainingrequire a robust, clinical behaviour change informed implementation strategy to enable optimal 23 Theoretical methods such as the Behaviour Change Wheel 24 have had considerable success in achieving sustained change than non-theory-driven models.…”

“…Finally, the surgical respondents to the survey reported a perceived benefit through a reduction in unnecessary consults. This comes at the potential cost to regular clinical exposure to the trauma environment, particular in smaller centres or those with less close Consultant supervision 18–20 . This training imperative may be partially mitigated through regular multidisciplinary TT training which can improve team function 21,22 …”

Are we deskilling or reskilling our hospital ward clinicians?

“…These expansions of knowledge and skills have necessitated specialisation and even subspecialisation of ward‐based care 34–36 . Clinicians are expected to learn more and more about less and less; the breadth of expertise has narrowed but the depth has increased.…”

“…These expansions of knowledge and skills have necessitated specialisation and even subspecialisation of ward-based care. [34][35][36] Clinicians are expected to learn more and more about less and less; the breadth of expertise has narrowed but the depth has increased. This is particularly true for doctors in training, an inevitability of specialist expertise and is also relevant for nurses on specialised wards.…”