Sidra staff help to improve medical care in Malawi

Sidra Medical and Research Centre employees Elaine Sigalet,  simulation consultant, and Renee Pyburn, senior project manager, travelled to Malawi recently as part of a group of eight simulation educators from the International Paediatric Simulation Society (IPSS). Commenting on the trip, Renee said: “Our team of eight international paediatric professionals travelled to Malawi to begin to determine how we could use simulation and education to improve training for healthcare professionals and ultimately improve paediatric and neonatal morbidity and mortality in Malawi.” The goals of the trip were to determine how best to leverage education and simulation as a learning modality for Malawi health professionals and parents to enhance the current delivery of the Emergency Triage, Assessment and Treatment (ETAT) course, and identify other areas which may benefit from the use of simulation to deliver information, to reduce the incidence of morbidity and mortality. “The team plans to make additional visits in the future to deliver the faculty training programme and to make sure that it is supported with appropriate resources. We hope to conduct additional fund-raising efforts to help pay for equipment and supplies necessary to deliver the training,” Renee added. In Malawi, the team met senior officials from the ministry of health and the public healthcare system, as well as the dean of the school of nursing and educators from the universities and the public healthcare system. To gain insight into the inherent challenges in health service delivery, the team attended an ETAT course and visited the Central Hospital in Lilongwe, district hospitals and rural health centres. The team is in the process of reviewing all the data collected from interviews with various stakeholders to develop a plan and in collaboration with Malawi educators develop a faculty training programme.Under Renee’s leadership, the Sidra simulation team has also made a difference in improving simulation training locally in Qatar. Sidra’s simulation team has helped to run a number of simulation workshops and scenarios at the University of Calgary in Qatar, College of the North Atlantic-Qatar and Hamad Medical Corporation. They have also helped to conduct an inter-professional education workshop for a group of clinical undergraduate students for the Qatar Interprofessional Health Council.Renee and Joanne Davies, Sidra’s acting manager of simulation education, were the first healthcare professionals in the region, out of 200 professionals globally, to obtain a Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator certificate (CHSE). The Sidra simulation team has also been instrumental in forming the Qatar Simulation Consortium, a group of simulation professionals from Sidra, HMC, the University of Calgary-Qatar, and College of the North Atlantic-Qatar. As part of Sidra’s work with the Qatar Simulation Consortium, the Sidra simulation team aims to make the CHSE a requirement for practising simulation instructors in Qatar soon.