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By Mark Newcombe- Co Director of DevelopingEM

As a co-director of DevelopingEM I have had a pretty realistic impression of what our little organisation is likely to achieve.

Lee and I hope, within the framework of a quality conference experience, to promote interactions between clinicians around the globe with the aspiration that these connections made will result in ongoing and long lasting benefit in the regions DevelopingEM visits.

These are fairly lofty aims which I must admit don’t always fit with my very realistic assessment of my own capabilities.

I was immensely proud of the experience Lee and I were able to organise in Havana but it is news just in the last week that has made me begin to realise that maybe we are doing something really memorable with DevelopingEM.

The news was from St Lucia.

In explanation, as part of our venture in Cuba we were able to support the attendance at DevelopingEM 2013 in Havana of three senior emergency clinicians from St Lucia, an island nation of 180,000 in the Windward Islands of the Eastern Caribbean.

We also facilitated a two day ultrasound workshop in St Lucia performed by Matt and Mike from the Ultrasound Podcast Team.

Dr Lisa Charles, an emergency physician who is also the medical director of Victoria Hospital in the capital of St Lucia, Castries, gave an amazing presentation during DevelopingEM 2013 on the development of emergency medicine in her homeland.

This presentation (powerpoint, audio, video) is available below.

So, a fruitful interaction on a small scale, and that I thought was that.

Then a few days ago we received the following update from Lisa.

Dear Mark and Lee,

St. Lucia continues to benefit from the allegiances made during your conference. We have managed to secure the donation of two additional ultrasound machines for Victoria Hospital in St. Lucia, one through ultrasound podcast (big up to Matt and Mike) and also from Meinhard Kritzinger (much love coming your way from St. Lucia).

Lisa

When I read Lisa’s update I realised that we really have done something a little special.

With no financial support, beyond all of you as our registrants, we’ve facilitated something for Lisa and her team in St Lucia that will be long lasting and beneficial for multiple patients.

Four years feels too long to wait to head back to the Caribbean.

Hopefully when we’re back, with your help we can expand our impact even further.

I know you will enjoy Lisa’s presentation and I’d like to thank her on behalf of all of you and the DevelopingEM team.

Lisa, we hope one day to see those ultrasound machines in action in Castries.