By: Jodi Kortje, Director, Emergency, Critical Care, and Medicine

On April 29 and May 1, the Emergency department held an Applied Disaster Medicine Course with PHSA’s Mobile Medical Unit (MMU)— a state of the art mobile facility and a provincial program providing a wide range of services from education to unplanned emergencies.

Sponsored by Facility Engagement funding, the purpose of the training was to create dedicated time to focus on clinical and medical knowledge and ability to practice concepts in responding to disasters in our own institution. Dr. Joseph Copeland and Fiona Francis spent a significant amount of time with the course organizers designing two incredible days of simulations and learning for our staff. In total, 18 Emergency Room Physicians, one Hospitalist, 20 RNs, one Nursing Unit Clerk, and two Social Workers attended the training.

The participants expressed a lot of appreciation and gratitude over this opportunity as it allowed them to role play complex situations in a safe environment of learning. It also gave the team the opportunity to learn about Richmond’s disaster plan and response and stimulated a lot of excellent discussions about “what to do” if a major disaster occurred.

With the regional code orange occurring in between this course, many of the staff who attended on the first day felt that they had a really good idea of what to do when the “patients” arrived due to the simulations that were performed the day before. When asked if we should hold another course like this, all participants agreed in the value and suggested expanding the invitation to include other services like internal medicine, ICU, and surgery.