Critical Care Education Services - a learner becomes a teacher!

Six years ago I attended a Basic Life Support and Advanced Cardiac Life Support Course conducted by Ken Hambrecht of Critical Care Education Services, and over intervening years have attended ECG Interpretation, Acute Life-Threatening Emergencies, Recognition and Treatment (ALERT) and Paediatric Advanced Life Support Courses. Ken always impresses me with his encyclopaedic knowledge of critical care medicine and attention to detail as well as being one of the nicest people that you could ever possibly meet. After the PALS course I was emboldened to approach Ken and ask if he ever heard of any clinical education opportunities and he was kind enough to offer me the possibility of assisting with some of his courses.

As a result I recently spent a most enjoyable Saturday afternoon running a workstation teaching groups of nurses and doctors the basic approach and methodology of intubation. For me it was a lovely opportunity to share the knowledge and skills that I had acquired through my work as an Anaesthetics registrar, and I enjoyed the feeling of having these tools in my hands again. I do miss being involved with full-time clinical medicine and hope that I will be able to further my skills and experience in acute medicine again in the future.

Since then I have also run skills stations in another Basic Life Support and Advanced Cardiac Life Support course on Paediatric BLS and Advanced Airway Management (intubation/laryngeal masks) and also the airway management station at the Paediatric Advanced Life Support course. It always gives me a 'warm inner glow' when the people on the course are enthusiastically grateful for the session!

Critical Care Education Services: www.criticalcare.edu.au/

It is interesting to reflect that I have been fortunate in being able to obtain all my clinical and educational work since early last year through personal contacts and not being afraid to approach people and ask. As the iconic saying goes, "nothing ventured, nothing gained"!