Pre-hospital emergency medicine / first aid?

[happyfacedani]

I was just wondering if there is any of the above on the 'curriculum' at Liverpool. Is there any first aid training at all, and is there the opportunity to go out shadowing paramedics? Does everyone do a placement in A&E at some point during med school, and if so, where and how long for, and what are you actually allowed to do? I've potentially got the opportunity to do pre-hospital courses and get certificates for doing them for my portfolio but don't want to do anything twice over due to time constraints! If there are any 3rd years up reading this can you let me know please?

Thanks!

[FruitcakeLiz]

There aren't as far as i know, other than the compulsory A&E SAMP (6 weeks ish) rotation in 5th year.

Is the stuff you're been offered with with LINKS?

[melon]

There is an A&E scenario to do with a big RTA in fourth year. You also have a few sessions in A&E. Apart from that, it's fifth year only as far as I know.

Pre-hospital first aid is not on the curriculum, apart from the bits that are common sense from how you would manage a patient in hospital.

What courses are you referring to? If you are interested in emergency medicine, then they will look great on your CV. I'd also suggest the annual Trauma Surgery course in Imperial College. I went last year and it was brilliant.

[happyfacedani]

No it's not links...basically my friend is a paramedic looking to get into the academic side of things. He's told me about courses in acute pre-hospital medicine that take place for HCPs and was thinking about trying to get one started for med students if the interest was there and nothing similar was offered...however they do cost money and we're not entirely sure the med school would fund them! Thanks for answering :-)

[Chang]

there was a debate about this in the sBMJ a couple of months ago, and i think the majority opinion (and also my own) is that there is a distinct lack of first aid training for med students. as soon as you start med school you lose the excuse of being a lay-person and therefore people have expectations of you in an emergency. i have done a number of different first aid courses through my outdoor activities and other sporting stuff, but other than BLS the med course has taught me very little, which is a shame really. it would take very little time to give first years a thorough knowledge of basic first aid in common emergency situations i.e. RTA, fire, fractures etc. so what i'm getting at is yes go for it - you definitely won't repeat the course later in med school so it'd be worth it.

[transatlanticrachael]

you could always do your elective in emergency med/ER/A&E/Casualty. Hopefully i'm off to canada to do it.

[Vixter]

You do A+E for 7 weeks in 5th year. You put down your top 3 choices for which hospital to go to and hope for the best.
In 5th year there is also an ALS (advanced life support) course, which ive got in 2 weeks so can let you know more details after that. Looking at the course booklet tho, there is a small bit of basic life support in it.

Any chance to do extra courses, get onto it definately. It looks shit hot on your CV and youll need stuff like that for your foundation programme applications.