Diving Medicine Summer School – Croatia (CroMSIC)

Name of the activity: Diving Medicine Summer School

Country/NMO: Croatia (CroMSIC)

Program: Teaching Medical Skills

Contact information: [email protected]

Type of the activity: Capacity Building

General description:

The project “Diving Medicine Summer School” will be accepting 16 students from all around the world in Rijeka, Croatia, who will in 8 days while the project lasts, from 9.7.-16.7., participate in a diving class, listen to 15 hours of lectures and enjoy an extensive social programme through which we will present the Clinical medical center in Rijeka and its Center for underwater and hyperbaric medicine. All of the students will be situated in the newly built student dorms of the University of Rijeka. The project will be held on a high level in cooperation with the Diving club Kostrena whose members will assist us in teaching the students how to dive and with the Center for underwater and hyperbaric medicine whose employees will be holding lectures about many topics from their area of expertise. The students will leave Rijeka with an official certificate which allows them to dive up to 18 meters of depth and will be enriched with newly acquired knowledge which currently, as students, they can not receive anywhere else.

Focus area:

First Aid/CPR/BLS, History Taking, Diagnostic measures, Clinical Examination, Doctor-Patient communication skills, Diagnostic tests interpretation, Handling the hyperbaric chamber.

Problem statement:

Underwater and hyperbaric medicine is a field of medicine that is not very well researched and is not used enough. Here in Rijeka, Croatia, a team of experts have gathered and have started treating several diseases with hyperbaric oxygen therapy that have not been treated this way before and the results have been very promising. The point of this activity is to bring hyperbaric medicine closer to as many medical students as it is possible and to maybe inspire them to take the knowledge they acquire in Rijeka to their own countries and cities to maximize the usage of hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

Target groups and beneficiaries:

Medical students are the target group. In long term we hope some of those students bring hyperbaric medicine into their own countries and use it for treating diseases in a different way.

Objectives and indicators of success:

– To bring hyperbaric medicine closer to medical students from all over the world. The better our summer school is, the more people will apply to participate in the upcoming years. When they see that it might be useful in treating many different diseases they might be inspired to bring their knowledge back home.
– Establish a long term summer school and a center for hyperbaric medicine in Rijeka, Croatia and make our town one of the regional centers for hyperbaric medicine in less than 5 years.
– Number of applications in the upcoming years will definitely be the most important marking of success and the satisfaction of the students that will be leaving our summer school in the end is another important factor for us.

Methodology:

– An open water diving class after which medical students will receive an international certificate with which they will be allowed to dive by themselves up to 18 meters of depth.
– 15 hours of lectures by some of the best experts in the field about different topics such as barotrauma, hyperbaric oxygen therapy etc.
– Real life situations surrounding diving medicine.
– A real life participation in admitting patients and making a protocol for their treatment in the hyperbaric chamber.

Plans for evaluation:

We will be making two evaluation forms, one before the event and one in the end. That way we will see what the students expect from our summer school and what they actually receive. We will find out what they liked about it and what can be improved or changed for next year.