In October, 2012, the Saint Joseph´s Catholic Hospital held a training course on pediatric and neonatal surgery, emergencies and resuscitation, for its own staff, personnel from other hospitals in Liberia and students from the A. M. Dogliotti School of Medicine and the Mother Patern College of Health Sciences.
The course was given by Dr. Fernando Rivilla, an expert surgeon from the Ramón y Cajal Hospital of Madrid, Spain, who comes every year to the Catholic Hospital to spend 10 to 15 days operating children, mainly of congenital malformations and trauma and burning sequels.
The course had four different parts:
Pediatric Medical Emergencies and general assesment
- Basic approach and child´s response to emergencies.
- Common problems in the different stages: neonatal, 1-5 months, 6-12 months, 3-5 years, 6-12 years, 12-15 years.
- Parents´ response to emergencies: dealing with parents
- Physical exam
- Pediatric vital signs
- Pediatric trauma
- Neurological emergencies
- Meningitis
- Respiratory emergencies
- Dehydration
Pediatric surgical emergencies
- Appendicitis
- Intussusception
- Pyloric Stenosis
- Incarcerated Inguinal hernia
- Hirschsprung’s Enterocolitis
- Malrotation with volvulus
Emergency neonatal surgery
- Pyloric Stenosis
- Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia
- Tracheoesophageal Fistula
- Abdominal Wall Defects: gastroschisis and omphalocoele
- Necrotizing Enterocolitis
Neonatal resuscitation
- Assesment: the Golden Minute, and the Resuscitation Algorythm
- Ventilation
- Intubation
- Chest compressions
- Epinephrine
- Hypovolemia
- Severe metabolic acidosis
- Equipment
- Techniques
- Study cases and scenarios