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More than 200 expected for Upstate's EMS Teaching Day

http://upstateonline.info/static/May12-May192016/blog/story-2/index.html

Upstate Medical University celebrates National EMS Week with a daylong conference May 16 aimed at providing emergency medical services (EMS) professionals with updates and advanced training on key issues related to providing medical care in the field.

More than 200 EMS professionals are expected to attend the event, which runs from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Welch Allyn Lodge at 4355 State Street Road in Skaneateles Falls.

Douglas Sandbrook, MA, EMT-P, who runs Upstate’s paramedic program and serves as Upstate’s liaison to the EMS community, said the EMS Teaching Day is an extension of what Upstate already provides the EMS community. “Upstate is the key training site and educational hub for EMS professionals in Central New York,” he said. “We make this EMS Teaching Day, free and available to all EMS professionals as a way to ensure that our first responders bring with them the very best skills to any medical emergency in the field.”

Sandbrook said that Upstate values highly its relationships with the EMS community. “The care they offer in the field makes the difference in regard to the care patients receive when they arrive at the hospital,” he said. “They are our lifesavers in the field.”

Among the presentations will be a discussion on the top five pediatric toxicology emergencies by Jeanna Marraffa, PharmD, DABAT, of the Upstate New York Poison Center. Topping the list is the ingestion of laundry pods, which are single-load liquid laundry packets.

A recent national study showed that children who ingested these pods faced a myriad of significant health problems, such as coma, seizures, pulmonary edema, respiratory arrest, corneal abrasion, ocular burns. A significant amount of patients required tracheal intubation; there was one reported death.

Other significant causes of poisoning for children are the ingestion of liquid nicotine, powdered caffeine, cannabinoids and clonidine, which is the substance used to treat hypertension and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

“Oftentimes the most important information is what EMS professionals see and hear in the field,” Marraffa said. “Rapid identification to a poisoning is crucial to providing life-saving care.”

A discussion and demonstration on performing ultrasound in the field, prior to transport to a hospital, will be offered by a flight crew from Mercy Flight Central.

Mercy Flight Central and Kobie/Life Net, two area providers of helicopter medical transports, will have helicopters on location to discuss medical care in the air.

Other presentations and special sessions will highlight providing medical care at large-scale events; sepsis; communication with children in the field; on-scene burn care; and caring for the mentally incapacitated patient.

Event sponsors include Medtronic, Gaumard and Stryker Neurovascular.

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