A FANTASTIC training opportunity is on the way to prepare general practitioners (GPs) out west to respond in an emergency.
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While specialised emergency teams are readily available in big cities, in regional, rural and remote areas of the state GPs can be the ones that are called to respond in emergency scenarios.
To prepare for this kind of situation, a mobile simulated clinical training bus is coming to Bathurst Hospital on May 21 to train GPs in rural emergency medicine skills.
The workshop is a collaboration between the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) Rural, the NSW Government's Health Education and Training Institute (HETI) and the local primary health network.
RACGP members are invited to sign up.
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Those who do the training will rotate through seven hands-on simulated scenarios that reflect real emergency care situations that health practitioners commonly face in rural and remote Australia.
RACGP Rural chair Dr Michael Clements said emergencies range from asthma attacks to major accidents.
"GPs, particularly in rural areas, could be called on for any level of disaster, so that can be anything from an asthma attack to chest pain in the waiting room, or outside the practice it could be stopping off at an accident or dealing with a trauma or any other kind of farming accident, all the way through to massive trauma where you have multiple casualties," he said.
The benefit of learning how to respond to incidents like this in the simulation centre is that it will feel more real.
"For doctors, we certainly learn through books and the internet and understanding the academics of a situation, but in an emergency there's so much more to do with how we interact with each other and the nurses, with the staff, and actually getting hands on the equipment," Dr Clements said.
"Using the mobile simulation equipment and the centre really gives a layer of depth and complexity that makes it much more likely that in a real scenario that we have a cohesiveness, good team work and a good way of working for the betterment of the patient."
Bathurst's Dr Ross Wilson has also encouraged GPs to sign up, saying they will be able to develop their emergency skills.
He said: "I cannot recall in the last five or six years I've been associated with it any complaints that it wasn't more than worthwhile the effort to come to it and most go away with an improved sense knowledge and improved confidence to deal with emergency situations."
To register for the training, click here.
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