Surgery

Biography

Biography: Dione Lother

Abstract

Introduction: Airway emergencies are a common clinical presentation. Surgical doctors (especially those working within ENT surgery) may be involved in cases requiring invasive interventions such as cricothyroidoctomy.  Furthermore, junior trainees in ENT may be required to provide emergency on-call airway services, sometimes without immediate senior supervision or support. Despite this, currently, no formal curriculum around airway management exists within the core surgical training program.  SBME offers an opportunity for trainees to learn within a safe, controlled environment without compromising patient safety and in addition, enables exposure to rare clinical scenarios as well as assessment and feedback.

Objective: Design a SBME program utilising intermediate-fidelity simulation to teach junior medical staff the clinical skills required to manage airway emergencies and non-technical/human factors required to function safely as a member of the wider team.

Methods: Trainees will rotate through three skills stations that provide the opportunity for hands-on practice in basic airway skills (simple adjuncts) and intubation, surgical airways (both cricothyroidotomy and tracheostomy) and fibro-optic nasoendoscopy. These stations will be followed by a series of simulation scenarios using a SimMan patient simulator; all with the common theme of management of patients with rapidly deteriorating airways.

Conclusion:  SBME is proving to be important in airway management education and as such may be an invaluable adjunct in higher surgical ENT training. Within core surgical training however, SBME in airway management may offer the only opportunity for formal teaching around this topic before junior trainees s are faced with a real life patient with airway compromise.