Saint John Company Offers Advanced Trauma Training For Paramedics
SAINT JOHN – As an emergency room doctor at the Saint John Regional Hospital, Dr. James French works with paramedics every day. This relationship helped him identify a gap in local skills-training opportunities for paramedics in the management of extreme trauma situations.
Last summer, Dr. French and his business partner, paramedic George Scott, decided to bring a program called ITLS: International Trauma Life Support, to Saint John. The program is operated through their company, Atlantic Emergency Medical Training Solutions (AEMTS).
ITLS is a global not-for-profit organization dedicated to preventing death and disability from trauma — accepted internationally as the standard training course for pre-hospital trauma care. Courses are used as essential curricula in many paramedic, EMT, and first responder training programs.
The organization helps medical professionals manage the critical first 15 -20 minutes of trauma while managing a very seriously-injured person. You have to be ready for anything: multiple-victim scenarios, seriously-injured children or infants, vehicle accidents, falls from extreme heights, shootings, stabbings, industrial accidents — whatever serious trauma might make its way to the emergency room table.
ITLS teaches cutting-edge techniques, enabling medical professionals to successfully manage high-stress, high-intensity trauma situations, says Dr. French.
“We are losing paramedics every day, and there are more issues at stake than language,” he said. “Being a paramedic is a very tough job; trauma takes a toll on people. The burnout rate is very high. By the time a patient gets to the emergency room, they are fairly-sanitized. Paramedics have to face the raw, immediate accident site — the toughest part to both experience and to process.”
Scott says the ITLS training teaches skills that help paramedics cope with the stress of the job.
“Paramedics in our province are underpaid and under tremendous operational stress,” he said. “One of the things we know reduces burnout is high-level medical training.”
It also leads to fewer errors, which means better patient care and less stress on the medical practitioner. Dr. French says ITLS paramedics are demonstrably more successful at handling a trauma situation — and thereby less likely to suffer from operational stress, and the burnout that comes with it.
ITLS is in high demand around the world, says Dr. French, the only prehospital trauma program endorsed by the American College of Emergency Physicians. Paramedics trained in the program can also become instructors themselves, so they can make extra money and be more valuable to their employer.
The training is international in nature, but Dr. French says it has to be adapted to the local needs in New Brunswick.
“ITLS is highly-flexible,” he says. “We adjust our local program to be relevant to paramedics in this region. Each province supports unique protocols: all our equipment mirrors precisely what is in New Brunswick ambulances. This is important for developing the instructor training program in a real-world way.”
The operational environment in New Brunswick is mostly very rural. Paramedics have to respond to things like an injury at a hockey game, a hunting accident, an accident involving farming equipment, a logging accident, an accident on a fishing boat, an elderly person taking a bad fall, or a snowmobile or ATV accident.
These scenarios require a great deal of thinking, but they require, at the same time, very much “boots on the ground” work, says Scott.
“We need to bring to light all potential hazards,” says Scott about the work of the instructors. “We need to consider the safety of our first responders. We need understand all the processes locally: What are the rules and protocols for accessing certain areas? Which specific hazards should we be looking for in this environment? How does the victim get safely extricated to the ambulance? We help our students learn these answers. When they become instructors themselves, they pass this knowledge on to the new group of instructors.”
The team at Atlantic Emergency Medical Training Solutions trained eight people during their first ITLS Provider course, which was held last January. They were encouraged by the results. Jaime Tracey, an emergency nurse working on her Master’s in Nursing, has undergone further training and is now certified as an ITLS Instructor. In addition, two paramedics who were identified as potential instructors (Jordan Sinclair and Heather Matchett) will be completing their instructor training in April.
Atlantic Emergency Medical Training Solutions will continue to train a certain number of students to be ITLS instructors.
“Our vision is to train as many people as we can, using ITLS and similar courses (Basic Life Support, Emergency First Responder, Advanced Cardiac Life Support, and Pet CPR) while developing a large coterie of instructors,” said Scott. “These instructors will deliver critical support to our New Brunswick medical training community, and ITLS trained paramedics can supplement their salaries by delivering valuable medical training.”
The next ITLS Provider course will take place on April 6th and 7th.