This Emergency Life

Just prior to heading up to Papua New Guinea to consult for the World Health Organization on the spread of COVID-19 in that country, Dr Karen Hammad joins us to talk about disaster management in the ED.

A fellow of the College of Emergency Nursing Australasia (CENA), Karen is an emergency nurse researcher who is passionate about preparing individuals, healthcare workers and health care organisations for disasters and other high visibility events. During our chat we talk about Karen's career in nursing, research and consulting with organisations such as WHO. We also get Karen's thoughts on our preparedness for the current pandemic and future disasters.

I hope you enjoy our chat with Karen (and Siri!) as much as we did, and remember what Karen said - "read the plan".

This week on the podcast we talk to Dr Jamie Ranse about the unique topic of healthcare and mass gatherings and its intersection with emergency care. Jamie is Research Fellow in Emergency Care in a joint appointment between Griffith University and the Gold Coast Health Service. He recognised internationally for his work focusing on emergency health care, primarily in the areas of high visibility, high consequence events such as mass gatherings and major events as well as disasters and public health emergencies.

A Fellow of the Australian College of Nursing and CENA. Jamie is the Chair of the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine, International Mass Gathering Special Interest Group and the immediate past Chair of the Australian College of Nursing Disaster Health Community of Interest. During our current SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic, Jamie provided consultancy to the World Health Organization, Western Pacific Regional Office regarding COVID-19, and mass gathering non-pharmacological interventions/mitigation strategies.

As we look longingly towards the off-ramp from our current restrictions, Jamie gives us some insights into what our future might look like for going to public gatherings such as festivals or sporting event and how our role in the ED plays a part in those plans. During our chat, my eyes were opened to an aspect of emergency care, which up until this year, I had not given as much thought as I probably should. I hope you enjoy the interview and Jamie’s remarkable insights.

This week John and I head up (figuratively speaking) to Far North Queensland and chat with emergency nursing all-rounder Chris Hawkins. Chris is one of five nurse practitioners currently working in Cairns ED and has a long and varied history in emergency and critical care nursing. These span roles such as ICU and CCU NUM in regional Victoria to Metropolitan ED Clinical Nurse Specialist, ED educator, PG ED university lecturer and Nurse practitioner.

Chris sits on the Clinical Council and the Credentialing Steering Committee of the Cairns Hospital and Hinterland Health Service, and as you will hear has a great way of looking at emergency care in Australia. During our chat we cover the challenges and benefits of working in FNQ, clinical governance in different states and his thoughts on the world of emergency Nurse Practitioners.

This week we caught up with one of the most respected emergency care leaders in Australasia, Professor Marg Fry FCENA. A winner of the Australasian Emergency Nurse of the Year and the Julie Finucane OAM Medal for Leadership in Emergency Nursing, Marg’s applied research on improving the quality and safety of nursing care and patient outcomes has led to significant change in emergency nursing practice and policy over the years.

Marg is currently Director Research and Practice Development Nursing and Midwifery Directorate, Northern Sydney Local Health District which is a Professorial Chair appointment with the University of Technology Sydney. Amongst other achievements, she is renowned for her work in advanced nursing practice and pain management. Marg has also developed and implemented innovative models of care that have been translated across Australia and through the nexus of academic and clinical roles has achieved clinically relevant evidenced informed emergency care.

Marg speaks about a broad range of topics related to the quality of care we deliver in the ED and the importance of maintaining that quality when things get busy. We also get some insights on becoming a leader, getting started in emergency research, working to our full scope, as well as Marg’s thoughts on pain management in the ED (and yes, there is still room for improvement).

Just a quick little bonus episode for your weekend listening. We spoke with Débora Liberalli a few weeks ago and we are keen for you to hear about emergency care in her country. Débora is an emergency nurse from São Paulo, Brazil and tells us about some pretty stark differences in emergency care in our two countries. We touch on her experiences caring for patients with ratios of 100:1 and days when the ED has 1000 presentations.

Débora is also doing some important patient safety research here in Australia and is hoping to interview emergency nurses about decision-making and reassessment when caring for patients in the waiting room. So if you would like to participate in Débora’s research and you have a spare 50 minutes to talk, please email us here at the show at [email protected] or message us on Twitter at @ThisEDLife. (full disclosure here - Cliff Connell is also one of Débora’s research supervisors).

We hope you enjoy this look into emergency care in Brazil and we’ll see you all next week when we return to our regular schedule.

This week on This Emergency Life we had a quick chat with Professor Daniel Fatovich at the Royal Perth Emergency Department. Daniel is also the head of the Centre for Clinical Research in Emergency Medicine at the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research and Professor of Emergency Medicine at University of Western Australia. We cover a lot ground in our short chat; from how the NEAT targets are tracking 8 years later, to illicit drug presentations in the ED as well as Daniel's interest in the arts. During our conversation, we discuss a few videos which Daniel has released. They can be found here:

The Art of the ED

Time travel in the ED

The lived experience of mental health patients in ED

I hope you enjoy Daniel's view of emergency care and please do check out his videos, they’re well worth it.

This week on This Emergency Life we speak with Associate Professor Lisa Kuhn. Lisa is an emergency nurse and Chair (Nursing) of the Monash Emergency Research Collaborative at Monash Health and Associate Professor of Emergency Nursing at Monash University Nursing and Midwifery. With nearly 30 years of clinical, academic and research experience in emergency nursing Lisa has so much to talk about that we almost need several episodes to cover everything.

We talk with Lisa about her primary research interests focussing on ensuring equity in early cardiovascular healthcare for women and disadvantaged groups through generating and translating evidence into practice. We also talk about the emergency care of those who experience domestic violence and substance abuse in the time of COVID-19, getting your foot in the emergency door, staying current and not letting the job get you down.

Lisa was a great sport about dealing with the noise from a jack hammer above the recording studio in the first few minutes of recording (don’t worry it doesn’t last). We hope you enjoy the show and I am sure we’ll be catching up again with Lisa in the future.

This week on This Emergency Life we speak with Professor Simon Craig. Simon is a paediatric emergency medicine physician at Monash Medical Centre, Clayton, and an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Medicine, School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health. He is vice-chair of the Paediatric Research in Emergency Departments International Collaborative (PREDICT) and has broad research interests in paediatric emergency medicine. He is also editor of the successful Monash Children's Paediatric Emergency Medication Book, now in its second edition.

During our chat with Simon we talk about getting started in research as an emergency care clinician, research collaboration across multiple paediatric EDs, managing bronchiolitis and much more.

Simon is also pretty active on Twitter and he can be found at @DrSimonCraig

This week on the podcast we catch up with Professor Julie Considine. Though she needs very little introduction for any Emergency clinician who has been paying attention, Julie is Deakin University’s Chair in Nursing at Eastern Health, one of Victoria’s largest health services and is a nationally and internationally recognised educator and researcher whose expertise spans both industry and academic sectors. She is also is a foundation member of Deakin University's Centre for Quality and Patient Safety Research and Institute for Health Transformation.

Julie has worked in emergency nursing since 1991 when she got her first position in the emergency department at Royal Melbourne Hospital after completion of her ‘staff year’. She later completed her postgraduate emergency nursing course at the long since closed Preston and Northcote Community Hospital in 1994-95. Since these early days Julie has achieved many awards for her excellence and contributions to the field of emergency nursing including Australasian Emergency Nurse of the Year and the Julie Finucane OAM Medal for Leadership in Emergency Nursing. A Fellow of the Australian College of Nursing and founding Fellow of the College or Emergency Nursing Australasia, Julie is also a Senior Editor of the Australasian Emergency Nursing Journal, represents the College of Emergency Nursing Australasia on the Australian Resuscitation Council, and is a member of the International Liaison Committee of Resuscitation Basic Life Support TaskForce.

Julie’s research is aimed at improving the quality and safety of patient care by optimising clinical decision-making, increasing use of research evidence in practice, and ensuring effective models of service delivery.

Julie has also been a leader in nursing education. She pioneered Transition to Speciality Practice programs for emergency nurses in Australia and the Career Development Year was the first of its kind in Australia in 2000.

We hope you enjoy our informal chat with Julie as much as we did. I think you will agree that she is one of emergency nursing’s strongest voices and straightest shooters.

With a surge in severe burns since stage-3 lockdown, This Emergency Life thought it was a good time to bring you an update on managing burn injury patients in the emergency department. Last week we spoke with James Bonnamy who is a Monash Nursing and Midwifery lecturer and Clinical Nurse Specialist at the Victorian Adult Burns Service - Alfred Hospital in Victoria.

James shared his thoughts (evidence-based of course) on the ABCs, goals of care and how to prepare your patients for transfer to a specialist service such as The Alfred. James also points us at a great reference for the initial management of severe burns