Paediatric Emergencies Conference
One of the most attractive features of a career in medicine is providing support for people. Whether that be for your patients, their families or your own colleagues – to provide support for learning and understanding gives medical professionals a great sense of achievement. The Paediatric Emergencies website, podcasts and now the Paediatric Emergencies conference which was founded by Dr Chris Flannagan, a Paediatric Intensivist from the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children in Northern Ireland provides that support, free of charge, to health professionals looking after critically unwell children. Paediatric Emergencies has not only inspired paediatric Resident doctors locally across Northern Ireland but its influence has rippled across the world helping the working lives of countless physicians, nurses and allied health care professionals in looking after the critically ill child. The lessons learned have in no doubt improved the standard of care provided to critically unwell children through enhanced education to the multi-disciplinary team.
For the last 6 years, the Paediatric Emergencies Conference has been a day-long, free, online, interactive conference hosted on Youtube. It draws on the experience of Paediatric Consultants and Resident doctors across the UK and Ireland to provide practical and up to date, evidence based medicine to manage the acutely unwell child. During the 6 years in which the conference has taken place, numbers have grew to over 6,000 views via the latest live stream event and over 100,000 views culminating all videos available from the previous conferences via the Paediatric Emergencies YouTube channel. The latest live stream was watched in over 35 countries last year reaching places as far as Malaysia, Zambia and Sudan. The beauty of the online model is access. These healthcare professionals from across the world can share their experiences with each other and with local teams hosting the event, which can offer a refreshing and revealing incite in how similar situations are managed across the world.
Medicine is inevitably about people and the stories which they tell. There have been countless stories fed back to Chris over the years of how his conference has impacted patient care across the globe. One example included a neonate that presented to a DGH, “not quite right”, with increased tone and lethargy. The Physician had recently attended the Paediatric Emergencies Conference and one of the lectures by a metabolic consultant has raised the possibility of a metabolic disorder to the forefront of their mind in terms of differentials for an acutely unwell neonate. She fed back that thanks to the lecture, an ammonia was sent early on the child, which came back markedly elevated. The child was transferred to PICU at an early stage and was doing well on the ward a few days later after being diagnosed with a urea cycle defect.
Shared learning is a key element to medicine to reduce the likelihood of mistakes being repeated. As a side note, they can also be cathartic experiences for the storyteller to warn people of the many pitfalls which can seem unavoidable in modern medicine. Sometimes it can be nice to be reminded that even as a Consultant, they still can feel unsure, they can still feel vulnerable, they are still learning and they are still human.
We have a duty of candour not only to our patients and their families but to ourselves, about where we can improve in our daily practice. Sometimes it can be hard to ascertain what area of our specialty that might be. Why not start with the emergencies? We hope to see you all at Paediatric Emergencies Conference 2024 on Thursday 14th of November 2024!
Ben Rafferty ST8 Paediatric Intensive care GRID trainee to Belfast’s Royal Hospital for Sick children/ Alder Hey Children’s hospital, Liverpool