Post Day Wrap

(Thanks to Dr. Sandeep Gadgil for organising the day and producing the summary!):

This education day was performed in collaboration with NETS.

Morning

Dr Arieta Fa’asalele from NETS detailed the Mobile Paediatric Neurosurgical Service. This was developed in response to an audit showing prolonged transfer times to tertiary paediatric neurosurgical centre. A protocol was created with the aim of performing emergency neurosurgery at the patient’s home hospital, involving the NETS team and a neurosurgeon. A review of subsequent cases using this approach found that surgery was performed approximately 3 hours earlier. Further details are available here:

https://thejns.org/pediatrics/view/journals/j-neurosurg-pediatr/16/3/article-p340.xml

Afternoon

Dr Jimmy Bliss presented on the role of eFAST in paediatric trauma. EFAST has a higher rate of false negatives in the paediatric population so cannot be reliably used to exclude intraabdominal pathology in trauma.

Workshops

Dr Bliss facilitated an interactive workshop for the NETS team to practice performing eFAST examinations. This brief introduction was followed with an invitation for any interested NETS staff to attend the next STORM (ultrasound) course.

NETS provided an interactive workshop for the HEMS team on neonatal vascular access including emergency umbilical lines and scalp vein cannulation using HEMS equipment. Our triple lumen central line is probably the most suitable for an emergency umbilical line if a formal umbilical catheter is unavailable. A key consideration is the depth of insertion, particularly taking note of port locations.