It’s hard to believe it but DEM2015 has come and gone.

It’s been an amazing conference and we hope that the relationships made during the event will continue to grow and develop in the years to come.

There are so many people to thank but chief amongst those are our Cuban Host Organising Committee without whom this event would not have been possible

PEDRO MONZON

PEDRO VELIZ

JEANNIE ELLIS

RAFFA LORENZO

Without you we would not have had an event and we are forever grateful for your enormous efforts and support Gracias Companeros To our incredible faculty who have joined us from around the globe, you really are the core of this conference. Your generosity is unbelievable. You have as a group made DevelopingEM what it is and we hope to continue building on an amazing group of clinicians as the years progress. In particular we must thanks our Program and workshop leads for herding the cats and getting everyone in the same place at the same time

JAMES SALWAY

BRIAN WRIGHT

ANTHONY CROCCO

JIM HOLLIMAN

REGAN MARSH

LISA CHARLES

LUIS LOVATO

MATT DAWSON

MIKE MALLIN

SCOTT WEINGART

JOE BELLEZZO

ZACH SHINAR
BRENT MYERS

JANET BRICE

JEFF BEESON

JOSE CABANAS

Thankyou and we hope to work again with you very soon To our support staff for keeping everyone happy!

KYLIE MAYER

TAYLOR HARDING

AINSLIE ASLANIS

ANNE TAYLOR

MAIRELENA ESPINOSA

MARICEL MANUEL VIDAL

Thank you for your hard work over the last year and especially during the conference.

Last but not least to our wonderful delegates from Cuba and beyond. I think we’ve collected together a wonderful group of people with a common ethos. Thankyou DevelopingEMers. Without you we would literally not have a conference.

Work begins when we return to Australia on our first venture in South Asia. In November 2016 we head to Sri Lanka to team up with the Sri Lankan Medical Association for our fifth conference. We’d love it if you can join us again, and if you would like to help out just drop us a line.

Thank You All and see you in 2016 Lee and Mark developingem@gmail.com

It is with great excitement that I can confirm that DevelopingEM 2016 will be held in Sri Lanka.

DevelopingEM is partnering with the Sri Lanka Medical Association (SLMA) as well as other Sri Lankan organisations to hold our next event in November next year.

The interest from within Sri Lanka has been overwhelming and we are very grateful to our colleagues within the SLMA for their support and enthusiasm.

This year we welcome Dr Sanj Fernando to the organising committee and he will be co-directing the event.

Sanj has helped us out by coordinating the Trauma track last year in Brazil and the CT Interpretation Workshop in Havana in 2013.

http://developingem.com/2014/05/21/this-years-trauma-program-developingem-2014-emergency-medicine-conference/

As you might imagine Sanj has a few connections in Sri Lanka and he has been instrumental in getting our 2016 event up and running.

Amongst those connections is Iyanthi Abeyewickreme who has been enthusiastically supporting our association with the SLMA.

We are very much looking forward to working with Sanj and Iyanthi in 2016 in our first foray into South Asia.

Whilst our attention at the moment is focused upon Cuba it’s never too early to think about the future and we will need your help.

If you are interested in assisting with our 2016 event please let us know.

The best ways to contact us are

• Personally at the upcoming conference
• Via email developingem@gmail.com

Passport  

Visa 

Tickets 

Travel Insurance 

Cash and Cards 

Conference Information?

Downloadable and Printable Programs, Maps and Guides are available here.

Its not always easy to get online or print documents in Cuba so use these resources before you go.

If you want to keep in contact with the other delegates during DEM2015 then ask Joachim Unger for the details of our Whatsapp group. Joachim can be contacted on Twitter @xaqu1n

Okay so we know you’re deep in the preparation stages for your upcoming trip to Cuba to join us for DevelopingEM 2015.

We’d just like to remind you of a couple of critical travel tips.

Travel to Cuba

As you know travel to Cuba is pretty easy, unless you’re coming from the USA.

For the Antipodeans we’d suggest going through Vancouver and Toronto. It might seem like the long way round but actually it’s only 3.5 hrs from Toronto to Havana. And you get your visa on the flight.

Europeans have got it easy with multiple flights from many origins going direct to Havana.

For those from the USA there are direct flight options from Miami and New York but our experience is that these are a pretty painful process. It’s actually easier to go through a third country and often these second flights have visa issue on board.

If you’re really struggling with your plans let us know and we’ll see what we can do to help.

Visas

All international delegates will require a visa to enter Cuba. Many airlines issue these visas either at check in or on board but it’s worth checking first. Applying for a visa can take as little as two weeks but we’d suggest you get cracking if you haven’t sorted this out already.

OFAC Approval

Official approval for US citizens to travel to Cuba is managed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The DevelopingEM conference, as an educational event, satisfies the general license requirements of OFAC regarding travel by US citizens to Cuba. More information on getting OFAC approval is available on our website and we do have some experts within our faculty who can guide you.

Travel Insurance

We would always strongly suggest you get travel insurance for any overseas journey.

In the case of travel to Cuba there is governmental advice that all tourists entering Cuba require Medical Travel Insurance provided by a company that is on a Cuban government approved list.

Country specific lists can be found with an online search.

Getting access to cash

One of the more frustrating aspects of travel to Cuba can be the difficulty accessing cash.

On a good day a non US visa debit card will be able to get cash from most Cuban ATMs but the success of this method varies almost by the day.

Buying items with credit card is becoming increasingly possible with non US visa cards and Mastercard. Other types of credit cards and indeed all credit cards linked to US banks will not work anywhere.

Cash is your best bet but again there are restrictions. All conversions of foreign currency engender a fee but the conversion of US dollars attracts a a larger fee. The best currency to exchange is probably the Euro. Australian dollars cannot be exchanged.

A good fall back is that cash advances may be obtained at banks, large hotels or Cadeca exchange houses against non US Visa and Mastercards.

In short have multiple options and a supply of exchangeable currency.

We look forward to seeing all of you very soon in wonderful Havana for what we hope will be the best conference of 2015.

Mary is a trauma and upper GI surgeon and Squadron Leader with the Royal Australian Air Force.

She is the head  of trauma services for South Eastern Sydney and is the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons NSW State Committee Trauma Chair.

She has worked in military hospitals in Afghanistan, an experience that has placed her in good stead to lead a Major Trauma Centre trauma team.

She trained at Flinders University before tenures at Westmead and St George Hospitals in Sydney.

Her immediate aim is to see St George Hospital continue to develop into one of the premier trauma hospitals in NSW.

Lee and I love working with Mary as she will take our smashed up prehospital patients direct from the helicopter pad to the Operating Theatre.

This year Mary will be talking about Trauma in the Elderly but you can check her 2013 presentation on Advances in Trauma Resuscitation HERE

Listen to the audio HERE

DevelopingEM 2015 returns with all the elements that make our concept a favourite including;

Short Sharp Evidenced Based Clinically Relevant Presentations

Delivered by a Faculty beyond compare

A Global and Regional Focus

Matt and Mike’s Renowned Ultrasound Podcast Workshop

Complete Sponsorship of 70 regional colleagues

Complete Absence of Pharmaceutical and Medical Device

Industry Involvement

Our Usual Amazing Social Events

And this year we have even more including;

Site visits to Cuban Health Facilities

NAEMSP Medical Directors Workshop

Cardiac Arrest Workshop delivered by Scott Weingart and the team from ED:ECMO

Provision of Ultrasound Machines to regional health centres as a result of your registration and donations

Presentation by ex-US Surgeon General Dr David Satcher

Come and join us in Havana for what will be one of the best conference of 2015 at an amazing time in Cuban history.

If you cant make it consider our Virtual Registration and Donation options.

The DevelopingEM team is greatly honoured to have had DEM2015 receive the endorsement of the International Federation for Emergency Medicine (IFEM).

IFEM will be partnering with DEM to sponsor the attendance of Cuban and Caribbean delegates to the event and we are very grateful for the support.

Jim Holliman, the current President of IFEM, has been enthusiastically supportive of our endeavours from the start and has coordinated an amazingly dedicated group of emergency physicians to discuss their ventures around the globe during our Global EM session on the afternoon of Tuesday 15^th of September.

With presenters discussing their experiences from India to Vanuatu this is sure to be a fascinating session.

Jim will be leading the session with a discussion on IFEM’s current activities. In 2013 he described the activities of IFEM and whilst there have been a few changes since then his presentation gives an excellent overview of the organization.

Watch the presentation here

Listen to the audio here.

Watch the video here.