Nearing the end . . .

It has been almost two weeks since the all day trauma and mass casualty training and drill and I couldn't be happier in how things turned out.  While I prepared and planned and did my best to make sure I was as organized as possible, I realized that the whole thing could implode and be complete chaos.  I felt strangely calm about it, though.  I did my best and while I had low expectations, I hoped for the best.  And it exceeded all my expectations.  Despite a late start in the morning and a bit of frustration as I waited for attendees to straggle in, the training went really well.  Participants were engaged, answered questions and seemed really excited about the hands-on case scenarios we went through in the morning. After lunch and brief directions on the plan for the mass casualty drill we headed to the Accident and Emergency Department for the actual drill.  There were swarms of people.  Staff from all over the hospital, plus A&E staff as well as University of Washington nursing students, residents and faculty were clustered in groups waiting for instructions and for the start of the drill.  My fellow students and others from the UW were gracious enough to help me by being patients for the drill.  They all had their scripts and were ready to act out their parts.  Some were kids, some patients with minor injuries and even one who was pretending to be dead.  After loading up the fake patients in the ambulances for a simulated arrival of our first mass casualty victims, the staff swarmed the ambulances and started triaging, helping patients out of the ambulances onto gurneys and wheelchairs.  I stood back taking pictures and then as patients were sorted into the appropriate treatment areas I stood by bedsides to listen to the staff talk through the primary and secondary survey and discuss how they would treat each of the patients.  And it was here that I realized how well things were going.  Everyone had a job, the chaos was held to a minimum and patients were sorted to treatment rooms in pretty quick succession.  As I listened to staff talk to each other and think out loud I felt my heart swell with pride. I was seeing that morning's training acted out and being put to use.

Almost all of the feedback I received was positive and I heard staff talking about doing more drills and training in the future.  Seeing staff feel empowered and excited to do more was more rewarding than I could have ever imagined.

A week later while talking to one of the staff, I asked her what she thought of the training and she had pretty positive things to say, and then she said, "I realized how important CMEs (Continuing Medical Education) are," and it was music to my ears.  If I had just one convert, it's more than I could have hoped for.