A week of emergencies – Morocco (IFMSA-Morocco)

Name of the activity: A week of emergencies

Country/NMO: Morocco (IFMSA-Morocco)

Program: Teaching Medical Skills

Contact information: [email protected] 

Type of the activity: Education

General description:

A long term project. It is a week-lasting series of simulation workshops and seminars about many cases that are often seen in the emergency department, in order to help medical student not only reason with the cases but understand the process of treatment choice. The first edition was a surgical one, it covered many cases from genera surgery to trauma and vascular surgery. A suturing technique workshop was held so participants could gain, or embetter, their practical surgical skills.

The second edition was about Medical Emergencies such as Cardiology, Pediatrics, Internal medicine and Neurology emergencies, with more practical skills workshops such as ECG interpretation, IV taking, intubation and monitoring techniques.

Focus area:

Surgical Skills, Diagnostic measures, Clinical Examination, Doctor-Patient communication skills, Diagnostic tests interpretation, Soft Skills for medical practitioners

Problem statement:

Medical Students in Morocco are an indivisible part f the Moroccan healthcare system. They are active providers of supervised medical care in the university hospitals, as well as peripheral hospitals in their 2nd year of internships before graduation. As Emergency care is the main activity where students have the least amount of supervision, it is mandatory for students to be academically prepared. However, our medical curriculum lacks drastically methods to acquire medical students with the right knowledge and skills to be prepare students for their role in Emergency care, since Emergency Medicine is mainly a lecture based topic in our medical curriculum.

Target groups and beneficiaries:

– Medical students: they will improve their knowledge about emergencies cases and their treatment, and as well as their self-confidence so they would treat patients more effectively.
– Medical Doctors and residents : with better help from their students, their job will be less stressful and more effective as a team work
– Patients : a more confident doctor and medical student are the key to recovery
– Hospitals : more patients are admitted and treated properly

Objectives and indicators of success:

– Increase the knowledge of medical students regarding medical emergencies
– Discussion and simulation of real emergency cases of different specialties
– Increase of level of knowledge of students after the workshops

– Increase the quality of healthcare in our teaching hospitals
– Number of students participating in the workshops:

– Continuous revision of the emergency care guidelines
– Organizing the workshops twice a year, once per semester

– Breed the interest of medical students towards the polyvalence of medical emergency care
– Tackling emergency care cases of different specialties: internal medicine, cardiology, endocrinology, pediatrics, surgery (general, vascular, traumatology…)
– Embetter the practical and surgical skills that are necessary for emergency care for the students
– Having at least one workshop for practical skills such as suturing techniques, cast setting, airways management, …

Methodology:

A long term project. It is a week-lasting series of simulation workshops and seminars about many cases that are often seen in the emergency department, in order to help medical student not only reason with the cases but understand the process of treatment choice. The first edition was a surgical one, it covered many cases from genera surgery to trauma and vascular surgery. A suturing technique workshop was held so participants could gain, or embetter, their practical surgical skills.

The second edition was about Medical Emergencies such as Cardiology, Pediatrics, Internal medicine and Neurology emergencies, with more practical skills workshops such as ECG interpretation, IV taking, intubation and monitoring techniques.

Plans for evaluation:
– Evaluation methodology was a simulation cases competition between the participants at the end of the cases discussion, to see if students have well understood the case and is able to tackle a real one on their own. The simulation case was supervised and noted by the professor/doctor facilitating the workshop

-We will make online evaluations form for participants to be filled , then we will try to increase the positive points and correct the negative ones.