Abstract
Mass-casualty incidents have a significant global impact. Despite calls for improved disaster-preparedness training, most medical curriculums do not include formal disaster-medicine education. In 2021, the Medical Council of Canada introduced new disaster-medicine learning objectives. This article presents a mass-casualty-incident course for 3rd-year Canadian medical students. The course includes lectures, and a large-scale simulation of an explosion scene, field triage zone, and simulated emergency department (ED). The simulation incorporated “Dark-team-member” facilitators and 17 live actor and 8 mannequin patients with moulage. Pre-/post-event evaluation data was collected. One-hundred and twenty medical students participated in the course. Confidence in managing a real mass-casualty incident, on a scale from 1 to 10 (no-confidence to completely confident) significantly improved based on a Mann–Whitney U test, p < 0.05. Few formal medical student mass-casualty-incident courses exist. Combining “Dark-team-members” with live actors, imbedding clinician facilitators with medical students, and having a simulation with a continuous disaster scene to the ED are unique to this course. The methodology is presented for future replication.
Résumé
Les incidents faisant de nombreuses victimes ont un impact mondial significatif. Malgré les appels à l'amélioration de la formation à la préparation aux catastrophes, la plupart des cursus médicaux n'incluent pas de formation formelle à la médecine des catastrophes. En 2021, le Conseil médical du Canada a introduit de nouveaux objectifs d'apprentissage en médecine de catastrophe. Cet article présente un cours sur les accidents de masse destiné aux étudiants en médecine canadiens de troisième année. Le cours comprend des cours magistraux et une simulation à grande échelle d'une scène d'explosion, d'une zone de triage sur le terrain et d'un service d'urgence (SU) simulé. La simulation comprenait des facilitateurs "Dark-team-member" et 17 acteurs réels et 8 patients mannequins avec moulage. Des données d'évaluation avant/après l'événement ont été collectées. Cent vingt étudiants en médecine ont participé au cours. La confiance dans la gestion d'un véritable incident de masse, sur une échelle de 1 à 10 (aucune confiance à une confiance totale), s'est améliorée de manière significative d'après un test U de Mann-Whitney p<0,05. Il existe peu de cours formels sur les accidents de masse à l'intention des étudiants en médecine. La combinaison de " Dark-team-member " avec des acteurs en chair et en os, l'intégration d'animateurs cliniciens avec des étudiants en médecine et la simulation d'une scène de catastrophe continue au service des urgences sont des éléments uniques de ce cours. La méthodologie est présentée pour être reproduite à l'avenir.
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Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Dalhousie University Center for Collaborative Clinical Learning and Research (C3LR) and Undergraduate Medical Education (UGME) teams for the many hours of time dedicated to this novel initiative. We would also like to thank Dal News and Nick Pearce for sharing the photos taken of the event.
Funding
Course funding was provided by Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine.
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Communicated by Andrew K. Hall.
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Eastwood, K.W., Harris, A. & Armstrong, J.B.P. A disaster medicine course for Canadian medical students: first implementation of a large-scale mass-casualty simulation. Can J Emerg Med 25, 949–952 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43678-023-00601-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s43678-023-00601-3
Keywords
- Disaster medicine
- Disaster medicine training
- Emergency preparedness training
- Medical students
- Health professional
- Mass-casualty incident (MCI)
- Education
- Curriculum development
- Simulation