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A decade of fundamentals of emergency care (FEC) course evaluation: Update from the last two years

Introduction: The Fundamental of Emergency Care (FEC) is a short course designed to give key skills and approaches to emergency care for non-specialist healthcare providers. This course has been running since 2012 primarily from the Western Cape of South Africa, open to all medical professionals for...

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Main Author: Kamembela, Ilunga
Other Authors: Hodkinson, Peter
Format: Thesis
Language:Eng
Published: Division of General Surgery 2025
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access_status_str Open Access
author Kamembela, Ilunga
author2 Hodkinson, Peter
author_browse Hodkinson, Peter
Kamembela, Ilunga
author_facet Hodkinson, Peter
Kamembela, Ilunga
author_sort Kamembela, Ilunga
collection Thesis
description Introduction: The Fundamental of Emergency Care (FEC) is a short course designed to give key skills and approaches to emergency care for non-specialist healthcare providers. This course has been running since 2012 primarily from the Western Cape of South Africa, open to all medical professionals for a fee. The course is conducted through self-study of a manual, and then two days of intensive skills and simulation based training. We undertook to survey and evaluate past participants of the course to assess the impact and suitability of the course, in order to improve and guide further iterations and expansion of the training. Method: We surveyed and analyzed all participants of FEC courses since inception using a series of email surveys. Descriptive statistics were performed using SPSS. The survey captured information about participants' profiles and opinions of the course. Results: Out of approximately 500 participants in 24 courses over the last decade, 210 (42%) took part in the surveys. The study revealed that a majority of the participants (67.6%) were medical doctors, with only a small percentage (14.76%) working full-time in emergency centres. The participants hailed from diverse backgrounds, including both rural and urban settings, and all facility levels. The overall consensus among respondents was that the course was well-presented, of affordable cost, and contained relevant content that they found useful in their respective practices. Conclusion: The FEC course has been established as a contextually relevant emergency short course for South Africa, providing an alternative to international courses which are often unaffordable, and may lack insights to local burden of disease and resource constraints. We believe that this is a model of training that can be expanded, locally adapted and remains feasible for local healthcare providers.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language Eng
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license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
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spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/41010 A decade of fundamentals of emergency care (FEC) course evaluation: Update from the last two years Kamembela, Ilunga Hodkinson, Peter Emergency Medicine Introduction: The Fundamental of Emergency Care (FEC) is a short course designed to give key skills and approaches to emergency care for non-specialist healthcare providers. This course has been running since 2012 primarily from the Western Cape of South Africa, open to all medical professionals for a fee. The course is conducted through self-study of a manual, and then two days of intensive skills and simulation based training. We undertook to survey and evaluate past participants of the course to assess the impact and suitability of the course, in order to improve and guide further iterations and expansion of the training. Method: We surveyed and analyzed all participants of FEC courses since inception using a series of email surveys. Descriptive statistics were performed using SPSS. The survey captured information about participants' profiles and opinions of the course. Results: Out of approximately 500 participants in 24 courses over the last decade, 210 (42%) took part in the surveys. The study revealed that a majority of the participants (67.6%) were medical doctors, with only a small percentage (14.76%) working full-time in emergency centres. The participants hailed from diverse backgrounds, including both rural and urban settings, and all facility levels. The overall consensus among respondents was that the course was well-presented, of affordable cost, and contained relevant content that they found useful in their respective practices. Conclusion: The FEC course has been established as a contextually relevant emergency short course for South Africa, providing an alternative to international courses which are often unaffordable, and may lack insights to local burden of disease and resource constraints. We believe that this is a model of training that can be expanded, locally adapted and remains feasible for local healthcare providers. 2025-02-25T12:39:42Z 2025-02-25T12:39:42Z 2024 2025-02-25T12:19:54Z Thesis / Dissertation Masters MPhil http://hdl.handle.net/11427/41010 Eng application/pdf Division of General Surgery Faculty of Health Sciences University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Emergency Medicine
Kamembela, Ilunga
A decade of fundamentals of emergency care (FEC) course evaluation: Update from the last two years
thesis_degree_str Master's
title A decade of fundamentals of emergency care (FEC) course evaluation: Update from the last two years
title_full A decade of fundamentals of emergency care (FEC) course evaluation: Update from the last two years
title_fullStr A decade of fundamentals of emergency care (FEC) course evaluation: Update from the last two years
title_full_unstemmed A decade of fundamentals of emergency care (FEC) course evaluation: Update from the last two years
title_short A decade of fundamentals of emergency care (FEC) course evaluation: Update from the last two years
title_sort decade of fundamentals of emergency care fec course evaluation update from the last two years
topic Emergency Medicine
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/41010
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