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NAEMT/PHTLS 5th Edition Text Instructor Roll-Out (posted January 23rd, 2002)
The new 5th Edition Instructor Roll-Out has been scheduled to take place as part of the EMS EXPO/Outlook 2002 conference, on Wednesday, October 2nd, 2002, 08:00-17:00 hrs.
This workshop will be delivered by members of the PHTLS Executive Committee and has been designed to update existing PHTLS instructors to the 5th edition materials. Participants will receive 5th edition texts and instructor manuals, and will be oriented to new content and instructor resource materials. The cost to attend the workshop is $150.00 USD.
To register for this workshop and for the conference, go to the EMS Expo/NAEMT Outlook site at http://www.advancedrt.com/core2002/cp2002index.html
Please note that Instructors who wish to run courses using the new 5th edition materials will be required to attend a PHTLS Instructor update workshop. Those Instructors whom are not able to attend the initial roll-out can attend workshops provided by designated Affiliates.
Dates for update workshops will be posted on this site sometime after the roll-out.
Australia runs it's 100th PHTLS program (posted November 12th, 2001)
Australia held it's 100th PHTLS Provider program on November 3rd & 4th, 2001, in Mount Isa. Faculty & Students celebrated the landmark course with a glass of Moet.
PHTLS was introduced to Australia in 1997 and has grown remarkably since then, due to the significant efforts of Faculty, Affiliates, Coordinators and support Staff. Thank you for all of your hard work and congratulations Australia
Services for Rick Vomacka (posted October 11th, 2001)
Calling hours are scheduled for Friday, October 12th, 2001, from 19:00 to 21:00 hrs, at Bissler's at 628 W. Main St. in Kent, OHIO.
Funerals services will be held on Saturday, October 13th, 2001, at 10:00 hrs, at St Joseph's Church 2643 Waterloo Rd. in Randolph Twp., and the Burial will be at Restlawn Cemetery in Brimfield.
Rick Vomacka passes away - by Jeffrey P. Salomone, MD, FACS (posted October 10th, 2001)
Tom Scott has posted a note to EMS-L that Rick Vomacka died last evening, October 9, 2001, following a battle with lung cancer.
For those who didn't know Rick, he had been involved in EMS for many, many years. In fact, few in the EMS field have probably had as a varied of as career. Rick had served as an EMS educator, publisher, salesman and, most importantly, provider. Rick served as the President of the National Association of EMTs from 1980 - 81.
Rick also played a central role during the early development of the PreHospital Trauma Life Support program of NAEMT. He was involved in one of the three original pilot courses of a program originally entitled "ATLS for Non-physicians", which subsequently became the PHTLS course. That program was in Sioux City, Iowa in 1981 or 82. In 1983 Rick became the Chairman of the PHTLS Committee and oversaw the original PHTLS Regional Faculty workshops held in Denver, CO; Baltimore, MD and Orlando, FL held in 1984 and 1985. Even though Rick turned over the reins of the PHTLS Chairmanship to Jim Paturas in 1985, Rick remained very active as the Military Coordinator and was responsible for helping to integrate PHTLS training into the US military.
Many of Rick's accomplishments were achieved while he was an EMT-Basic, and many of us in EMS applauded his pursuit of paramedic training and cheered when he accomplished this goal.
At conferences or when he was teaching, it was clear to any observed that Rick loved life and loved EMS. Rick has gone "out of service" for the final time-- may he rest in peace.
Derek Hason is Communications Coordinator (posted September 13th, 2001)
Derek Hanson, B.S., NREMT-I has been appointed to the position of Communications Coordinator by Will Chapleau, and is now an active member of the PHTLS Executive Committee.
Derek is presently the EMS Coordinator for St. Alexius Medical Center in Bismarck, ND, and has served as Chair on the Planning Committee for the International PHTLS Scientific Symposium that took place in Bismarck in July of this year.
Please join us in welcoming Derek to the EC! You can contact Derek at: (O)701.530.8620 or by email: dhanson@primecare.org
Marc van Gompel passes away - by Gerben Welling
PHTLSchairman The Netherlands (posted August 24th, 2001)
On Wednesday, August 22nd, 2001 PHTLS instructor Marc van Gompel passed away. On his holiday he drowned. There was no possibility to resuscitate him.
Marc van Gompel was a very enthusiastic PHTLS instructor and EMS nurse in Dordrecht. He died at the age of 35 years.
The Dutch PHTLS foundation feels very sorry. Our deep feeling are going to all who cared for Marc van Gompel...
PHTLS in Australia - by Annette Halliday (posted August 9th, 2001)
Queensland is the third largest State in Australia with an estimated resident population of 3.42 million. Queensland has plentiful natural resources, a superb sub-tropical climate covering an area of over 1.7 million square kilometres, which accounts for nearly 25% of Australia's total land area. By way of international comparison, Queensland is more than twice the size of Texas and five times larger than Japan.
The tyranny of distance often proves fatal in regional Queensland where motorists are three times more likely to die from a car accident than crash victims in the city.
In 1996 a Queensland Health (State Government Health Department) study conducted in remote North Queensland identified the perceived lack of confidence of practitioners in their basic pre hospital life support skills as a major source of stress. Practitioners indicated this lack of confidence was one of the reasons causing them to leave rural Queensland for metropolitan centres.
In rural Queensland, due to frequent occurrence of major trauma, limited staff numbers and rapid staff turnover, it was felt that a trauma training strategy was needed and that a course should form the central point of that strategy. The course had to be multidisciplinary to allow anyone in front-line trauma care to participate and train together to replicate the reality of the work environment.
Queensland Health introduced the Pre-Hospital Trauma Life Support Program in 1997 with the endorsement of the Royal Australian College of Surgeons as part of its commitment to improving health of people living in rural and remote Queensland.
Greg Chapman, Larry Hatfield and Scott Frame traveled to Australia in December 1997 to assist in the delivery of the inaugural courses.
Dr Nikki Blackwell F.R.A.C.P. F.A.Ch.P.M. D.T.M.H. a Physician and Coordinator, Palliative Care Service and Director, Emergency Department at the Mount Isa Base Hospital is the Australian Medical Director of the PHTLS Program. Mount Isa is located 1800 kilometres northwest of Brisbane.
The majority of the Program's Instructors are from Queensland Health. There are also Instructor's from the Queensland Ambulance Service, the Australian Army and the Royal Flying Doctor Service. This network of trauma trained personnel continues to be developed across Queensland and Australia.
In November 2000, the PHTLS Program was awarded The Premier of Queensland's Award for Leadership and Management Excellence. The Program was nominated for the award by Queensland Transport who recognised it as being a major significant initiative to improve the toll from trauma in rural and remote Queensland with a direct impact on saving lives.
Over 1500 students have participated in 95 courses since 1997.
Quick Link to PHTLS International-Australia Page
July/August 2001 - PHTLS continues to grow and stay busy with the development of the 5th edition. Chapters are in the final review process with some work being done on new chapters determined by review of the first drafts. Photo and video have been shot and we are beginning to work on the ancillaries. We are on schedule for availability of the text and all materials in July of 2002 with the rollout scheduled at the NAEMT/EXPO conference in Nashville in October 2002. Make plans now to be there with us. Authors and the publisher will be there to review the new material and discuss future developments in areas such as translation and distance learning.
Representatives from Venezuela and Israel completed provider and instructor training at the Chicago Heights Fire Department in June. Venezuela hopes to run their first course this year and the Israelis are looking at the spring of 2002. Peru is still looking to run a course in September. Denmark should be scheduling courses soon also.
An agreement is being worked on with World Bank and Macedonian officials for PHTLS in Macedonia. At the very least, the 3rd and 4th provider courses conducted by joint US/British faculty are scheduled for July and an instructor course is pending the signing of an agreement. We hope this Eastern Europe effort, which has seen courses in both Macedonia and Bulgaria, will also bring courses to Croatia and Albania soon.
The US Army's PHTLS program beings in July and this should help us to provide more courses to more Army medics.
We are working on new course activity in Utah & Alabama and hope to increase course sites in Minnesota soon.
Course activity continues to climb along with book and material sales. Currently we have 1100 courses registered, which is a 30% increase over last year's pace.
Remember, if you have state or regional conferences you would like us to be at, let us know. Also, if you have a site interested in hosting a PHTLS symposium, we'd like to hear from you.
We're looking forward to the annual meeting at NAEMT's Outlook in Reno and hope to see many of you there. The EC, authors and publisher will be there to update and share ideas with all of our faculty and providers who attend. See you in Reno!
by Will Chapleau, PHTLS Division Chairperson
2001 PHTLSScientific Symposium - "Evidenced Based Trauma Care - The Scene and Beyond": (posted July 18th, 2001)
Sunny skies and warm hospitality greeted participants of the PHTLS Scientific Symposium held in Bismarck, North Dakota on July 13th to 15th. Attendants traveled from all reaches of the United States; the event hosted International delegates from all continents. Pre-conference programs included PHTLS, ATLS and ATCN, and social activities interspersed the various programmes to provide networking opportunities and too, a chance to relax and kick back. A small exhibit hall allowed delegates to peruse at their leisure, the latest technologies and resources available for prehospital/EMS.
The Symposium opened with an excellent trauma reenactment of a single vehicle roll-over that demonstrated the process of patient care, from extrication to transport, Emergency Room to Operating Room. Two floor to ceiling projection screens enabled the audience to watch as acting EMS reporter Greg Chapman interviewed the scene commander throughout the vehicle extrication by fire personnel and subsequent rapid extrication by ambulance personnel, all of which took place remote to the Symposium. Transport concluded with the patient being shuttled into the auditorium and onto a stage set up with a mock Emergency Room. Will Chapleau and Dr. Norman McSwain provided further commentary to accompany the staged proceedings. It proved an effective tool to demonstrate the essence of prehospital function.
The entire Symposium provided an opportunity for attending delegates to review and assess current research and differing viewpoints associated with same. Individual presentations preceded panel discussions on such controversial issues as trauma resuscitation, spinal immobilization - indications and applications, and prehospital transport issues.
The final presentations and panel assembly to close the Symposium centered on research and the apparent need for more emphasis, specifically, on prehospital research. Those that attended and participated were left with some excellent tools and further encouragement to pursue such research in their own fields and services.
The event overall was an educational success. For details regarding the Symposium, including esteemed presenters and reviewed research, visit the Symposium notes page.
by Mary-Ann Clarkes, Canadian College of E.M.S. Administrator
May/June 2001- PHTLS growth continues. Course activity is showing a 23% increase with new sites coming up all over the U.S. and new international activity.
Bolivia joined us in March and expect Peru and Venezuela to join us within the next few months. Venezuela will have 12 potential faculty members in the US for their initial training in June and we hope to have teams from Israel and Portugal as well. We also hope to be in Denmark later this year and to provide demonstration courses in Macedonia in June and July. We also hope to return to Bulgaria later this year and to run demonstration courses in Croatia
The PHTLS International Family now includes: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Bolivia, Panama, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, China, England, Ireland, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Holland, Italy, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Trinidad, Barbados and Greece.
The website is undergoing an overhaul and we hope to have new online services for course registration and the sales of PHTLS logo items later this year.
The 5th edition work is on schedule for release of all materials by July of next year. Skills have been reviewed and there will be additional video and text support materials for faculty and providers. Existing chapters have been enhanced and new chapters will address specific areas of interest in prehospital trauma care.
There has been a great deal of interest in translation of the materials and we hope to have news on that front to announce at the PHTLS symposium in Bismarck in July.
The military has had a huge increase in activity and is set to embark on a mission to train 58,000 Whiskey Bravos over the next 3-4 years.
We took a tremendous hit this year with the passing of Dr. Scott Frame. Scott was in many ways the engine that kept us running for the last several years. He kept us on course and constantly rearranged his schedule to be with us and represent us wherever the call came from. While we will miss him and it is difficult sometimes to work, waiting for his comments and contributions that helped to move us forward, we will continue, in his name, remembering his belief that we could make a difference in the plight of trauma victims all over the world.
Plan to join us in Bismarck for the 2nd international symposium. Pre-conference courses in PHTLS, ATLS and ATCN will lead into two days of panel discussions on the issues that affect the care we give our patients now and what we may be doing tomorrow. Information can be found on the website or by calling headquarters at 1.800.94.PHTLS.
See you in Bismarck.
ByWill Chapleau, PHTLS Division Chairperson
March/April - PHTLS course activity continues to grow. We are running more courses in more places than ever before. New course sites are opening up all over and our network of faculty and providers participating in our programs and sharing information grows steadily.
Work is continuing on the 5th edition of the PHTLS text and materials. First drafts of the chapters are now being reviewed all over the world. Video and photo work are also being shot an edited.
Bolivia, Peru and Venezuela are hoping to run their first courses by the summer of this year. Representatives from Bolivia, Denmark and South Africa converged on the Chicago area to participate in training to prepare their countries to host PHTLS courses in the future. Besides receiving provider and instructor training, they were also schooled on the administrative responsibilities involved with setting up PHTLS in their own countries. The team members also spent time riding with the firefighter/paramedics of the Chicago Heights Fire Department.
The second PHTLS Symposium in Bismarck, ND, July 12-15, is going to be something special. Besides two days of presentations and panel discussions, there will be simultaneous preconference courses: ATLS, ATCN & PHTLS. This will be the first time we have been able to bring together the physician, nurse & prehospital care provider trauma training at a single site. It should be a great opportunity to work together in planning for the future of prehospital trauma care. The topics will cover many of the controversies facing prehospital trauma care as well as how to interpret and conduct prehospital research. Check the website at www.phtls.org for information and registration.
We will also hold the midyear PHTLS meeting at the symposium so we look forward to seeing you there.
Make plans also for the annual meeting at OUTLOOK 2001 in Reno.
By the way, as many of you know, I have accepted a new position. My new contact information is:
Chief Will Chapleau
Chicago Heights Fire Department
83 East Joe Orr Road
Chicago Heights, Illinois 6041
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