COURSE REPORT PTCFOUNDATION PACKAGE IN IRAN – JANUARY 2024 2007
Iran is a large country with a mixed urban and rural population. It has a very high mortality from road traffic accidents (about 30,000 deaths/year) as well as having more and larger earthquakes than any other country in the world.
“It shouldn’t take one much effort to realize why thousands of people lose their lives on the roads throughout the country. Official estimates put the annual death and injury toll as a result of accidents in Iran at 25,000 and 250,000 respectively. Iran’s roads are regarded as among the most dangerous in the world.
(Iran Daily/Islamic Republic News Agency, Nov 10 th 2005)
In collaboration with Iran University of Medical Sciences & Health Services (IUMS) and professional colleagues in medicine, emergency medicine, surgery and anaesthesia, a PTC foundation course was held in the skills centre on the above dates. The package consisted of:
• A two day First Primary Trauma Care (PTC) course led by external PTC instructors
• A one day PTC instructors course led by external PTC instructors • A two day PTC course led and delivered by the newlytrained Iranian instructors • The establishment of an Iranian PTC committee to lead and plan future
development of PTC in Iran
First PTC Course Participants were drawn from Emergency & Internal Medicine, Surgery, and Anaesthesia. For this first course many participants had been preselected as possible instructors, and many were already involved in teaching. We enjoyed first class administrative support in preparation for the course thanks to the hard work of Dr. Hossain Saidi. An excellent teaching room was provided, complete with teaching aids including digital projection, whiteboards, and overhead projection. This was backed up by the availability of an excellent skills laboratory with manikins and teaching equipment.
Constant secretarial help was available, and ample refreshments and lunches were provided for the participants and faculty. In accordance with PTC policy, no per diems were paid to participants nor did the faculty (international or national) receive any fees for their contributions. Participants paid a small charge as a contribution towards the local costs (mainly catering) of the course.
The course consisted of a mixture of teaching in lectures, and informal small group teaching based on practical skill stations, scenarios, and workshops. Although the participants had a high level of written and spoken English, we were glad that the PTC manual was available in Farsi, and 3 of the 5 lecturers were also able to give their presentations in the national language.
First PTC course participants – January 20/21 2007
It is PTC policy to work as much as possible in the language of the country and PTC headquarters provided course manuals in Farsi for all participants. In the early stages of introduction we often have Englishspeaking students, but as PTC reaches provincial centres and district hospitals, using the national language from the outset has many advantages. Our thanks go to Dr. Khaled Ayazi for providing an excellent translation of the manual, and to Dr. Bushra Shirazi for translating the slides.
As usual on PTC courses, an MCQ examination was given at the beginning and end. These showed a very high level of basic knowledge (average mark 90%), with further improvement (95%) on the second exam These marks would have been even higher except for the fact that we only had the MCQ in English, and this made it much more difficult for some of the participants.
Instructors’ Course At the end of the first PTC course, we invited ten of the participants to attend the instructors’ course, and then to teach on the second PTC course, which immediately followed it. Selections were made on the basis of performance on the course, and on the advice of local knowledge of teaching potential. These choices were made before the final MCQ was administered, and we were very happy to see that the MCQ results supported our decisions.
Instructors course, January 22 nd
The course consisted of teaching by the overseas PTC faculty. The focus was on improving everyone’s teaching skills, whether lecturing to a large group, running a small group tutorial or discussion, practical skill teaching, or running a scenario session. In microteaching each participant is required to produce after 10 min preparation either a section of a formal lecture, or 5 minutes of smallgroup interactive teaching. After presenting this in front of their colleagues they are then given feedback on their teaching technique (What went well? Why? What might you do differently next time?).
The faculty were delighted to observe a substantial development of the participants’ teaching skills over the course of the day. This improvement was even more evident on the following day, when our Iranian colleagues took on full responsibility for both organising and running the second PTC course.
Second PTC course participants, January 23/4 2007
A second PTC course, directed by Dr. Saidi, and led entirely by our Iranian colleagues, immediately followed the Instructors course.
We were delighted at the efficient way in which our Iranian colleagues applied themselves to organise and run the second PTC course. The overseas faculty members were present as observers, and to help and support in any way on request, and to provide further indepth feedback to the lecturers. Our experience was that, not only was our help not required, but that various elements of the course – timekeeping, organisation of teaching rooms etc, was significantly better than the course we had run ourselves! The MCQ results for the second course were fully comparable with the first course.
Other activities We were honoured to be able to meet Dr. Farzad Panahi, chief of the Ministry of Health’s Disaster & EMS management Centre. We spent over an hour with him at the ministry, with two of our Iranian instructor colleagues. We explained the nature and content of PTC, and the advantages to Iran in having a trauma training system suited to the needs of the whole country. We understand that the ministry plan is to review progress of PTC courses led by Iranian doctors after a suitable time. In the meantime Dr. Panahi requested more written information about PTC, and I have arranged for this to be supplied.
During the course we were also pleased to be granted an interview by Iranian television, including the first ever television coverage in the world(?) of a PTC Primary survey, shown 3 times on the national news!
Summary of achievements:
1. PTC was introduced for the first time in Iran, with the collaboration of PTC instructors from Pakistan and UK.
2. 40 Doctors from a range of specialties were trained as providers of Primary Trauma Care.
3. 10 Iranian doctors were trained as full PTC instructors. 4. A PTC planning committee was established to work on further courses in Tehran
and provincial hospitals. 5. The profile of PTC was raised through contacts with the Ministry of Health and
TV news coverage 6. Many new professional and personal friendships were made. 7. PTC Iran has joined the international “family” of 33 countries using PTC system,
strongly linked with colleagues in neighbouring Pakistan 8. Within a week of the course, the local committee had produced a definitive local
edition of the PTC manual in Farsi, were continuing work on the slide translation, and had set a date (in 25 days time) for the next PTC course they would organise themselves.
On behalf of PTC we want to say THANK YOU to all who made these courses not only possible, but outstandingly successful, including:
• Dr. Hossein Saidi & Dr. V.A. Hassani, Iran Medical Sciences University • Our Iranian colleagues who both participated in the course, and worked as
instructors on the second PTC course • Dr. Dadgar and the staff of the Skill Centre • Dr Abtahi • Prof. Rashid Jooma (Karachi) • Dr. Bushra Shirazi (Karachi) • Dr. Khaled Ayazi (London) • Dr. Mike Dobson (Oxford) • The University of Iran (IUMS) • The Iranian PTC committee • The British Medical Association, WFSA, and the British Society of Orthopaedic
Anaesthetists, who provided financial support
Michael Dobson Oxford, UK., 27 th January 2007
Annex 1
Course 1 Participants: ALI BIDARI HOSSEIN SAIDI SEYED HOSSEIN SHAKER SEYED ABBAS HASSANI SAID ABBASI NAHID KIANMEHR MAHMMOD REZA KHALATBARI FARZAD BOZORGI MOHAMMAD TAGHI TALEBEIAN AMIR NEJATI ALI LABBAF MOHSEN ABBASI
CHANGHIZ GHOLIPOORI DAVOOD FARSI HADI ROOZBEH VAFA RAHIMI MOVAGHGHAR MOJTABA CHRDOLI MOHAMMAD REZA HASSANPOOR MAJID RAZAVI BABAK MAHSHIDFAR REZA GOHARANI
Instructor course participants: ALI BIDARI HOSSEIN SAIDI NAHID KIANMEHR MAHMOOD REZA KHALATBARI MOHAMMAD TAGHI TALEBEIAN
ALI LABBAF MOHSEN ABBASI CHANGHIZ GHOLIPOORI MOJTABA CHARDOLI BABAK MAHSHIDFA
Course 2 Participants: PEYMAN MOHARRAM ZADEH SEYED MOHAMMAD HOSSEINI HASAN AMIRI MOHAMMAD REZA YASINZADEH PAYAM RAOUFI HAMED BASIR GHAFOORI HAMIDREZA HATAMABADI ALI ARHAMI MANI MOFIDI
POOPAK RAHIMZADEH KEYVAN ELCHEIAN ALI JANGJOO ALIREZA SABZEVARI NADER TAVAKKOLI MIRMOHAMMAD MIRI ZAHRA TAGIPOORANVARI REZA SHAHRAMI MAHMOODREZA ALEBOOIEH
Faculty Dr Hossein Saidi (Iran, Course Director, Course 2) Prof. Rashid Jooma (Pakistan) Dr. Bushra Shirazi (Pakistan) Dr Khaled Ayazi (Iran/UK) Dr. Michael Dobson (UK, Course Director, Course 1 & Instructor course)