A team of 6 Doctors, 4 nurses and 3 paramedics from the Medical College of Wisconsin in the United States is in Belize conducting training in Accident and Emergency treatment. But, it's not their first time here. The team has been coming for years, but after a decade of discussion, six months ago, a memorandum of understanding was signed to provide structured training in emergency medicine and response for Belize's A and E personnel. Head of the team, Dr. Mark Bruce who's been coming to Belize since the 90's explained:
Dr. Mark Bruce - Medical College of Wisconsin
"The focus of this is elevating the status of the speciality of emergency medicine, and we have identified many of the A & E physicians that are passionate about this also. They have been engaged for the last two weeks in training. This is the beginning of a 2-year modular curriculum, and the design of this is to have multiple teams from the Medical College of Wisconsin return to Belize and to do similar type of work. During the summer, it is expected that there will be representatives from out counterparts here; the doctors, nurses and paramedics will exchange, come up to our home base in the Milwaukee area, where the Medical College of Wisconsin is located, and work in our simulation laboratories, doing specific skill development, and also rotating through 3 of our A & E's in the Milwaukee area."
Dr. Adrian Coye - KHMH, Medical Chief Of Staff
"We want to transform the culture of what happens here, and this is part of the excitement for us because we have such willing hands that will help us to have the very serious discussions to see and point out all the ugly things that we always here about, but this is our process to change what we're doing for people."
Dr. Mark Bruce
"I've been in resource-limited environments and resource-rich environments, and you don't have to have a resource-rich environment to have quality care. You have to have the same passion for people, that's kind of the underlying common denominator for quality of care."
Dr. Adrian Coye
"We are not where we would want to be, but we working progress. And, as you're going to see, the changes will happen in terms of how patients come through our department. Rules may change in different ways, but for the mere purpose of having better outcomes for the patient. Our whole agenda is about patient-centred approach; the patient is our gold standard."
And one under-appreciated element of that standard is the BERT Ambulance Team. Dr. Donna Venezia who's been an instructor for three decades plus, says BERT is a valuable part of the emergency response apparatus:
Dr. Donna Venezia - State University of New York (Emergency Medicine and Trauma)
"I've worked in many of the hospitals and many of the emergency rooms abroad, and Belize has something that is unique. Most of the countries around the world do not have a pre-hospital system that works. You guys are lucky; you have BERT. You have a system here in taking somebody who is shot, or who is injured on the side of the road from a car accident, or who is very sick and can't get to the hospital otherwise. You have a pre-hospital system that most other countries around the world simply don't have. To me, this is probably one of the best things that you're emergency experience here, or the ability for this country to move forward to become the best in emergency medicine because you have something that most people don't even realize is important."
The next teaching team in from Wisconsin arrives in May, and another in October.
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