CUBA HERE WE COME!

GDay DevelopingEMers!!

Well after a deserved break we are back, and we are returning to Havana, Cuba for our conference in 2015.

After such an amazing time in 2013, and also after many requests, we have decided to return to the region biannually.

Between the 13th and 17th of September you can experience the unique DevelopingEM experience in the most unique capital city on earth, Havana.

There will also be a 2 day ultrasound workshop on offer as well as site visits to some of Cuba’s medical institutions.

Our fourth conference will build on the successful formats from Sydney, Havana and Salvador with

–       Short, sharp, clinically relevant critical care presentations aimed at the senior clinician
–       Excellent, engaging, renowned presenters
–       direct involvement of local clinicians
–       an associated ultrasound workshop hosted by Matt and Mike from the Ultrasound Podcast

In response to delegate feedback we will

–       include more time for interaction and discussion
–       add site visits at health facilities in Havana
–       drop our registration charges

Of course our core objectives will remains central to this conference

–       not for profit model with zero industry sponsorship
–       regional delegate sponsorship and assistance
–       provision of free educational devices and material to Cuban and Caribbean health systems
–       free open access to all DevelopingEM presentations

It’s hard to believe this will be our fourth conference and we’re looking forward to sharing the DevelopingEM experience with more and more dedicated clinicians from around the world next year in Havana.

DevelopingEM 2014 in Salvador, Brazil was another amazing experience and our enthusiastic group of delegates and presenters had a spectacular time.

Along with the sponsorship of 43 Brazilian and regional delegates (on the back of the sponsorship of 63 Caribbean delegates in 2013) DevelopingEM also sponsored the provision of 4 computer workstations preloaded with hundreds of hours of critical care educational material for health centres around Brazil.

As we have seen in Cuba these materials will undoubtedly be seen and shared with hundreds of hard working local clinicians over the next years.

The program in Brazil was undoubtedly our best ever with over 30 hours of amazing presentations by incredible presenters including Joe Lex, Billy Mallon, Peter Viccellio, Marianne Gausche-Hill, and Luis Lovato amongst others, with an outstanding ultrasound workshop hosted by Mike Mallin and Matt Dawson from the Ultrasound Podcast.

Trying to better this in 2015 will be difficult but we already have so many incredible presenters interested in helping us in Havana that we’re hopeful of an even better program in 2015.

For those of you who are new to DevelopingEM our welcome presentation in Salvador will give you an idea of what we’re about.

Stay tuned for more blog posts dedicated to the presentations from Salvador and with important information on making the most from your upcoming Cuban experience.

Don’t forget to follow our progress on Twitter (@developingem) and Facebook and help us meet your needs by sending us all your ideas and feedback.

Both Lee, I and our Cuban team cant wait to see you in Havana from 13th to 17th of September 2015.

Be good.

Lee and Mark.

Presenter Profile- Khaled Menapal

Khaled probably has the most incredible medical work history of anyone you’ll ever meet.

From working as a general surgeon in Afghanistan, to managing an ER in Holland, to going on regular deployments with MSF, to tutoring family physician trainees at multiple universities, Khaled has literally done it all. He joined us in Cuba as a delegate and this year we are very happy to have him on our amazing faculty. he will be talking about hismany experiences in trauma and developing world emergency medicine.

Presenter Profile – Peter Viccellio

Peter is the vice chairman and clinical director of the Stony Brook University Hospital ED in New York. Under his leadership, Emergency Medicine became a Department in the Medical School. Known for his engaging teaching style, Peter received the Aesculapius Award for Excellence in Teaching from the SUNY School of Medicine in 2003. He is the editor of Handbook of Toxicology. His areas of research include overcrowding, patient safety, medical errors, head and cervical spine injuries, and residency education. Peter has served in numerous leadership positions at the state and national levels of the ACEM and the SAEM. He is a frequent lecturer on emergency medicine topics at the local, state, national and international level.

Presenter Profile – Stuart Swadron

Stuart Swadron began his career in medicine as a general practitioner in Canada. He emigrated to Los Angeles to pursue his passion for emergency medicine. He is currently Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine and Medical Education at the University of Southern California and an attending emergency physician at Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center. Stuart served for many years as the residency program director at LAC/USC and he has remained very active in medical education. He appears as a co-host and contributor on the popular EM:RAP series.

DevelopingEM supports local photographic artist

In searching for photos to use on our website we came across the amazing work of local Salvadorian photographer Tiago Lima.
His photographs immediately attracted us as being beautifully composed and artistic and certainly not simply travel photos.
Tiago was generous enough to offer his photos free of charge for our website and marketing and we’re sure you will agree they have added greatly to our material.
Tiago will be brightening up our reception area at the Sheraton da Bahia with some of his work which will also be for sale, but you better get in quickly because we’ve seen the collection and are keen on securing a few pieces for ourselves.
His photos will be available as fine-art prints on Hahnemuhle paper in three different sizes, (20x30cm | 30x45cm | 60x40cm) with prices between US$ 150 and US$350.
Only 5 (five) signed copies per photograph will be available and all the prints are sold in a package ready to travel abroad.
A few of Tiago’s amazing photos can be seen here and on our website.
We are terribly grateful for Tiago’s help in the leadup to DevelopingEM and are very happy to introduce him to our delegates.
We hope you are similarly entranced by his work.
tiagolima01 tiagolima02 tiagolima03 tiagolima04

Presenter Profile – Marianne Gausche-Hill

Marianne was our very first registrant for DevelopingEM 2014 and was an enthusiastic and very appreciated presenter at our last venture in Havana.

She joins us from UCLA where she is the director of EMS and Paediatric EM fellowships.

She is a multiply awarded educationalist and is acknowledged as one of the leaders in paediatric EM worldwide.

Amongst her many achievements Marianne was named a Hero of Emergency Medicine by ACEP and we know she will bring a dynamic zeal to her involvement in DevelopingEM 2014.

Join Marianne and us in Salvador by registering now and stay tuned for more presenter profiles.

Presenter Profile – Billy Mallon

Billy is joining us from LA where he has been teaching faculty at LA County and USC for over 20 years.

As you are no doubt aware Billy has been a central figure in global EM teaching for years, but what you may not know is that he has been assisting with the development of EM as a specialty in Chile for over 20 years.

As such we are very grateful to have his unique perspective on developing EM in South America.

Billy will bring his unique and multiply awarded educational style to all three of the core sessions,Adult EM, Paediatrics and Trauma.

Join Billy and us in Salvador by registering now and stay tuned for more presenter profiles.

Emergency Medicine in Brazil

In our recent newsletter we focussed on the excellence of our upcoming program.

One of its core features will be delivered by our Brazilian colleagues and will focus on where Emergency Medicine in Brazil has come from and where it is headed.

As well as examining the past and future of the specialty in Brazil, there will be an explanation of some of the processes in Emergency Medicine training and also a description of a recent mass casualty situation- the Santa Maria nightclub fire.

Our Brazilian presenters are the cornerstones of the specialty in Brazil and include Ana Paula Freitas who heads the innovative EM training program in Porto Alegre and Fred Arnaud from Fortaleza who is a previous president of the Brazilian Association of Emergency Medicine (ABRAMEDE).

As for all our core sessions we will have UN style translation during this part of the program. Our Brazilian colleagues are as excited as we are to interact and discuss the challenges we all face in emergency medicine so make sure you come and support their efforts in hosting this session.

Another great reason to come to DevelopingEM 2014.

Register now and join us all in Salvador.

What’s so good about DevelopingEM? An attendee’s perspective.

Blog Post By Nat Thurtle 

 

What’s so good about DevelopingEM?

I have been lucky enough to attend a variety of fantastic Emergency Medicine conferences over the time I have been an EM trainee. Conferences with cutting edge research, conferences utilising and explaining the exciting frontier of social media and open access, conferences where the thought leaders of emergency medicine and critical care deliver digestible pearls, conferences with opulent social programmes, conferences where the tea breaks have amazing new airway toys to play with while you drink your latte.

So what’s so good about this one?

Shiny?

It’s certainly not the shiniest. No airway toys, no free pens, not even a latte (don’t worry, there is always coffee!). No cabaret-esque introduction, dancing girls or ‘90’s rave approach to lighting. There’s never to my knowledge been an ICU consultant dressed up as a uterus at DEM either, a la the wonderful SMACC 2013…!

Fast-paced?

DEM is not as punchy as other conferences. Imagine every presentation being interpreted into another language in real time! This means a slow and measured approach to speaking, not using slang etc, busier slides with 2 languages on them, making information accessible to the many delegates who don’t speak English.

For me, its 3 things that make DEM great – the ethics, the true innovation and the heart.

Ethics

DEM is really not for profit.

Nobody makes any money out of DEM. There’s a small team of organisers, most of whom work full-time as EM physicians, and give their time and expertise for free. There’s a broad international array of speakers who not only give their time for free, but most of whom pay full registration fees (to support sponsorship of local delegates) and cover all their own costs. These include speakers that really don’t need the gig, people like Judith Tintinalli, Joe Lex and Jerry Hoffman.

DEM is not compromised by industry sponsorship

DEM does not accept pharmaceutical industry sponsorship. In this age of deep controversy over industry influence on practice, this is a meaningful and important stand against this that no other international EM conference has been able to take, to my knowledge. No toys at tea break is a small price to pay.

DEM happens in countries where EM is developing

DEM recognises that people are practising EM outside of the US and Australasia! We were in Cuba in 2013, and now Brazil, bringing high calibre speakers to practitioners that would not otherwise have live access to them and building connections. #FOAMed is awesome, but if you only speak Portuguese, and work in a developing context, or in Cuba where there is essentially no internet, what is available or relevant to you is limited.

Innovation

DEM recognises the ‘dirty’ side of medicine

Many conferences focus on the practice of medicine in an ideal fully equipped setting with the assumption that practice is scientific. For me, recognising and understanding the political and inexact nature of health care provision – inequality of access, inequality of standard of care and the undue influence of corporate needs on research and guidelines, as well as pragmatism in the face of limited evidence, limited expertise or limited resources and our own fallibility – is a critical part of being a real physician. DEM does not ignore these factors, despite them being complex and ‘dirty’. Bringing politics to an EM conference? To me this is brave and innovative.

 

DEM sponsors local delegates and has local speakers

DEM fully sponsored 65 local delegates from Cuba and other Caribbean nations last year, bringing local speakers to their own peers, and to an international audience, and will be doing the same in Brazil this year.

 

DEM does real-time interpretation

DEM does real-time bilingual interpretation of all presentations and question and answer sessions, making information truly accessible to delegates and allowing people to converse who would otherwise not be able to.

 

The Heart

What happens after DEM is cool.

Matt Dawson and Mike Mallin from the Ultrasound Podcast ran an ultrasound course in Castries, St. Lucia and Ricardo Hamilton and Mary Langcake (trauma surgeon from Sydney) ran the first fully accredited ATLS course in the Bahamas in the week after DEM 2013. The first ever Paediatric Intensive Care BASICs course in St Lucia was also organized following DEM 2013, to name but few follow-ons.

Delegate registration fees contributed to computers and USB drives loaded with #FOAMed resources, and EZIO kits that were donated to Cuba, St Lucia and the region after DEM 2013.

A letter signed by conference organisers and delegates was published in the BMJ calling for an end to the US-Cuba embargo in the name of access to health care, raising awareness in the medical community on this complex topic.

 

The social is awesome

Never got to bed before 2 or 3 in Havana – mojitos, cuba libres, music and Caribbean heat, similar minded folks to share stories and ideas with, hoping Brazil will be the same.

 

Lee and Mark

These two are brilliant. They are the heart of DEM and have my total confidence and respect.

So, that’s what I think is so good about DevelopingEM. Come and see for yourselves!!

Nat

Looking back, looking forward – DEM Presentations from 2012 & 2013

Central to the ethos of DevelopingEM has always been the excellence of the program. This year we think we have our best program ever with the format and content influenced by the feedback of previous delegates. You can see what’s in store for you if you come to Salvador by reviewing the previous presentations which are available on our website.
Havana
Sydney