Medical students use online EBC

Since early March, restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 lockdown have made us all change the way we do things. We have been working with all our partners to find different ways we can help their work. We were delighted therefore when we received a request from Dr Sandesh Maskey, consultant plastic surgeon at Kathmandu Medical College and Interburns’ faculty member, to use our online Essential Burn Care (EBC) course. He writes:

‘A country-wide lockdown came into effect on 24 March 2020 in Nepal as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic. This measure, though effective in controlling the spread of the disease, made it impossible for medical students to attend lectures which were traditionally given in a large hall in a face to face manner.

 As a consultant surgeon responsible for teaching Burns and Plastic Surgery to the pre-final year medical students at Kathmandu Medical College, I thought of writing to Interburns UK and ask if our students could use their online EBC learning platform in these difficult times.

We were pleased that 68 of our students were able to enrol for the course which is a  structured course on burn care for LMIC’s.

The students were very grateful for the opportunity provided and said that they had gained a significant amount of knowledge from the course.

This shows how a novel way of training was possible during the global pandemic thanks to Interburns and also showed how effective distance learning could be if applied to other regions of the globe.’

EBC online mirrors the course handbook for the face to face EBC, a one day course run locally in many countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. It includes 17 sections on topics such as: infection prevention and hygiene, surgical management, nutrition, psychosocial support and paediatric burns, and there are short quizzes after each section.

The array of surgeons, nurses and therapists who have signed up to do the EBC online is proof that appropriate training in burn care in low resource settings is much needed, for instance in: Nigeria, Afghanistan, Syria, Malawi, Tanzania, Jordan, Sudan, Burundi and Sierra Leone among others.

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