Advanced Burn Care (ABC)
ABC Nursing: Nursing is a critical aspect of burn care and burns are often regarded as one of the most challenging specialties in nursing, however few nurses in resource-poor countries receive any training in burn treatment and care.
ABC Nursing is highly practical and focusses on group work, interactive case studies and problem-solving. A combination of local instructors and international faculty helps to overcome language barriers that could reduce the effectiveness of teaching.
This course has been run 5 times: Bangladesh (2016), Ghana (2017), Nepal (2018), Ethiopia (2019) and Tanzania (2023), by a mixed faculty of nurses and health professionals from Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe. With each iteration, the curriculum is revised and course materials are contextualised.
Three modules on Nutrition, Pain management and Infection Prevention are freely available online here.
ABC Rehabilitation is a 5 day programme for physiotherapists and occupational therapists treating burns in low resource environments. It is a highly practical and hands-on course designed ‘from the ground up’ for Low and Middle Income Countries. It has been run once in Bangladesh (2015) and is will be held in 2023 in Ghana.
ABC Surgery completes the trio of modules that support core members of the burn care team: surgeons, nurses and therapists. It is a five day interactive programme covering all key aspects of surgical care from acute and emergency stages in the first 24 hours, through to reconstructive surgery months or years post-injury.
Topics include: the importance of surgery in burn care, escharotomy and fasciotomy, debridement and skin grafting, peri-operative planning and care, analgesia and anaesthesia, reconstructive surgery and critical care, as well as leadership and change management.
Participants learn how to treat extensive burns, burns in special areas (such as face, hands and joints), inhalation injuries, electrical burns, how to manage scars and deal with sepsis. A simulation scenario also looks at mass casualty situations which is a relatively common occurrence in resource-poor countries, and how to effectively manage, triage and prioritise patients in these circumstances.
The first ABC Surgery was held in Nepal in late 2018 at the Interburns Training Centre (ITC), Kirtipur Hospital, with participants from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Malawi, Nepal, Nigeria and the Palestinian Territories.
A very successful ABC Surgery was also held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in March 2020 for relatively young surgeons at the start of their career. Participants came from hospitals across Ethiopia as well as from Rwanda, Nigeria, Malawi, Sierra Leone and Sudan.
