R. Abraham1, M. Hollis1,2, A. Malhotra3, D. Vyas1 1Michigan State University,Department Of Surgery,Lansing, MI, USA 2Harvard Medical School,Department Of Urology,Boston, MA, USA 3Virginia Commonwealth University,Department Of Surgery,Richmond, VA, USA
Introduction: The trauma pandemic is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, but especially in fast developing economies. Perhaps a common cause of trauma-related mortality in these settings comes from the rapid expansion of motor vehicle ownership without the corresponding national pre-hospital training in developed countries. The resulting road traffic injuries often never make it to the hospital in time for effective treatment, resulting in preventable disability and death. The current paper examines the program evaluation of medical first responder training that has the potential to reduce this unnecessary morbidity and mortality.
Methods: An intensive training workshop has been differentiated into two progressive tiers: Acute Trauma Training (ATT) and Broad Trauma Training (BTT) protocols. These four-hour and two-day protocols, respectively, allow for the mass education of laypersons—such as police officials, fire brigade, and taxi/ambulance drivers—who are most likely to interact first with pre-hospital victims. Over 750 ATT participants and 168 BTT participants were trained across three Indian educational institutions at Jodhpur and Jaipur. Trainees were given didactic and hands-on education in a series of critical trauma topics, in addition to pre- and post-survey self-assessments to rate clinical confidence across curricular topics.
Results: A variety of career backgrounds enrolled both in our ATT and BTT workshops, run by local physicians with a spectrum of medical specialties as well as ATT-trained police officials. Statistical analysis revealed significant improvements in clinical confidence across all curricular topics for both ATT and BTT protocols. In addition, the pre- and post-survey confidence levels were generally similar across the multi-institutional settings.
Conclusion: These results suggest a promising level of reliability and reproducibility across different geographic areas in fast developing settings. Program expansion can offer an exponential growth in the training rate of medical first responders, which can help curb the trauma-related mortality in fast developing economies. Future directions will include clinical competency assessments and further progressive differentiation into higher tiers of trauma expertise.
