Injury is a major cause of death and disability worldwide. Prompt provision of emergency care and the rapid movement of injured victims to a health care facility can save lives, decrease short-term disability, and improve long-term outcomes. Importantly, enhancing prehospital emergency medical services is a pillar of the WHO’s recently launched Decade of Action for Road Traffic Safety.

In a GHDonline virtual panel discussion June 13-17, emergency medicine and trauma care experts with experience working on every continent will lead a discussion around designing, implementing and evaluating prehospital care training courses. The discussion will span topics including, necessary considerations when developing appropriate training curriculua in various settings; how to involve a variety of important stakeholders; how to measure the effectiveness of a training program, and how to maintain the quality of the trainees over the long term.

The discussion  is occurring here in GHDonline’s Global Surgery and Anesthesia community. Nearly 500 global health practitioners from 60 countries connect and share useful knowledge in this virtual settings. Participating in the discussion is free and easy through your email inbox or the website. Sign up for GHDonline and set your email notifications to “per post” or “daily digest.” Then jump into the conversation and share your experiences, advice, and resources.

Panelists:

Manjul Joshipura, MBBS, MS is a technical advisor to the WHO on global trauma systems development. Trained as an orthopedic surgeon, Joshipura has extensive experience in developing and supporting trauma care systems in a variety of settings, particularly system development, capacity building, and quality improvement activities.

Junaid Abdul Razzak, MD, PhD is the founding chair of emergency medicine at Aga Khan University Hospital in Karachi, Pakistan. Razzak leads the WHO collaborating center on prehospital and emergency trauma care and currently heads Aman Health, a non-profit initiative on establishing a prehospital care system in Karachi.

Paul Bollinger, M.P.H., Emergency Medical Care (EMC) Senior Advisor, oversees the EMC Train the Trainer education and systems development programs for Medical Teams International. He has worked in the EMS field in both urban and rural settings for more than 25 years and has extensive field experience in Asia.

Amado Alejandro Báez, MD, MPH is the chair a department of emergency medicine and critical care in the Dominican Republic General Hospital and co-director of the Operational Medicine Institute.

Ross Donaldson, MD, MPH, CTropMed, FACEP is the global head of International Medical Corps’ emergency and disaster care development programming, as well as a UCLA medical and public health professor. He specializes in the development of emergency care systems in low- and middle-income countries. Dr. Donaldson is the author of The Lassa Ward, a memoir about international aid work.