Emergency docs upgrade skills
Frontline doctors at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital have been brushing up on their skills at handling emergency cases. Eighteen medical professionals took part in a two-day refresher course conducted by two visiting neurosurgeons, one from the United States and the other a Belizean completing studies in Mexico. Head of the Emergency Department at K.H.M.H., Dr. Marta Habet, says these short refresher courses help her staff to keep up with the latest advances in emergency medicine.
Dr. Marta Habet, Deputy Dir., Accident and Emergency Dept.
“Well we have different topics and we have chosen some topics that are very common at the emergency department. For example head injury, spinal injury, herniated disk, shunts, and that is most of all what we are going to see during these two days.”
Patrick Jones
“So in effect you are brushing up on your skills so that you are better able to treat Belizeans when they come to the emergency department?”
Dr. Marta Habet
“Well that is the purpose of these topics and what is the purpose of all these sessions that we have in the hospital or outside the hospital. We are trying to get more knowledge, we are tying to get more exposure to other doctors that could give us training and could give us also more information to keep us updated on these topics and others. And the objective is to improve the quality of service that we have at K.H.M.H.”
Dr. Andre Joel Cervantes, Neurosurgeon
“I think its very important because the doctors at the A & E department are the doctors who are first on hand to take care of any patient that has a neurological or neurosurgical problem. So with this course or this refresher course that is being given both by Dr. Bagin and by myself, with this we can help our local Belizean doctors to improve quality care that we want to give at the K.H.M.H.”
The last sessions of the course dealt with cases of spinal trauma, which Habet says are frequently handled by the A & E Department. The doctors who underwent the training were rotated so that their attendance did not interrupt patient care at the K.H.M.H.
