A small delegation from Rambam Health Care Campus participated in a two-day workshop at Shanghai’s Ruijin Hospital. The workshop – part of a larger project – was initiated by a graduate of Rambam’s trauma management training program.
Three senior members of Rambam’s medical staff were recently in Shanghai to provide trauma guidance for the medical staff at the city’s 2,000-bed Ruijin Hospital. Rambam Director and CEO Dr. Michael Halberthal; Director of Nursing Gila Hyams; and Director of Trauma and Emergency Surgery Dr. Hany Bahouth traveled to Shanghai for a two-day program as part of a joint cooperation project initiated by Professor Chen Erzhen, a Chinese graduate of Rambam’s trauma management training program.
Erzhen, who returned to China following the course and is now Ruijin Hospital’s Vice President as well as the head of its trauma unit, turned to Rambam after Ruijin decided to develop a trauma system. Erzhen proposed a joint project with three components, the first of which, was the recent visit to Shanghai and included a one-day seminar and preparations for the second component of the joint project. “We conducted this seminar with our Chinese counterparts. They described their emergency systems, and we presented the system we have at Rambam as well as Israel’s emergency system,” explains Hyams.
At the seminar, entitled “2019 China-Israel Seminar for Emergency Medical Rescue,” Halberthal, Hyams, and Bahouth presented a total of eight sessions between them, including “Organizing a Trauma System and a Trauma Center” (Bahouth), “Teamwork and the Trauma Coordinator Role in the Trauma System” (Hyams), “Pre-Hospital MCS Management and Response” and “Underground Hospital – from Vision to Reality” (Halberthal), and more. In addition to several presentations by Ruijin Hospital staff, the President of Beijing University People’s Hospital—who had visited Rambam one week earlier as part of a delegation—spoke about the establishment of trauma rescue and treatment systems in China.
The second day of the conference was spent interviewing prospective candidates for the project’s second component – a ten-day trauma training session at Rambam for doctors and nurses from Shanghai, which will take place at the end of June. “We interviewed 54 individuals to assess their suitability for such a course,” recalls Hyams. Approximately 24 of them will be selected to attend the training session at Rambam. “We will show them the system at Rambam and how things are done in Israel, both in terms of treating individual patients and dealing with multi-casualty events,” Hyams adds.
The third and final stage of the project will be to conduct a large-scale, three-day drill in Shanghai at Ruijin Hospital. The first day will consist of the team from Rambam giving lectures about the drill, and on the second day, the Ruijin staff will prepare for the drill. “We will observe what they do, accompanying them and providing guidance,” Hyams says. The drill itself will take place on day three.
“This initiative puts Rambam on the world map with regard to trauma situations and teaching capabilities. We are talking about cooperation with a major hospital in Shanghai, which also has a significant financial base, as well as an opportunity to continue with training and our philosophy of sharing the extensive knowledge that we have acquired at Rambam in this area, and to lead the way to improvements in the quality of treatment for trauma and mass-casualty patients in other hospitals. It is a great compliment for us that a hospital this large selected us to mentor them,” Hyams explains.
In addition to the joint project with Ruijin Hospital, there is another cooperative effort with a hospital in France, which sent a delegation to Rambam in 2018 for a training session. This year, they will have a very large simulation center, and a team from Rambam will attend in order to oversee the site. The Rambam team will also work to create a working relationship that will enable this location to serve as a Rambam center in Europe, where Rambam will be responsible for its academic content. Workshops were also conducted this year in India and San Francisco.
Halberthal notes, “We see today that the world is unfortunately finding itself facing a growing number of mass-casualty situations. As a result, we are seeing a greater awareness of the need for training and readiness. Rambam is glad that it can use its own experiences and knowledge gained over many years to help prepare other hospitals in this regard.”
