Emergency Nursing 2024 will offer cadaver and ultrasound labs to beef up attendees’ clinical skills.
These hands-on learning opportunities are designed to help emergency nurses enhance their confidence in performing critical interventions and assessments. Whether looking to learn a new skill, practice difficult procedures or see an intervention being taught in a new light, the labs are a great setting to dive deep and slow into clinical situations that usually occur in a fast-paced, unexpected manner, according to Dan Smith, BSN, RN, vice president of medical affairs at Teleflex, a global provider of medical technology and education for emergency nursing professionals that is sponsoring the ultrasound and cadaver labs.
“At Teleflex, we’re committed to improving the quality and health of people’s lives,” Smith explained. “We aim to do that by providing education to fill in the knowledge gap, and that way increase procedural competence of clinicians.”
The cadaver labs will enable nurses to visualize procedures from a different perspective on human cadavers. Attendees can expect to learn about basic and advanced airway management, intraosseous access, emergency treatment of pneumothorax and hemorrhage control. Smith says the experience serves also as an intimate anatomy review.
“When we’re able to teach nurses skills while they visualize what they’re doing and how that affects the various structures of the body, you can see a light bulb go off. It’s almost like an “aha!” moment,” Smith said.
The ultrasound labs focus on the ins and outs of point-of-care ultrasound, or POCUS, that can be applied to various clinical scenarios, such as cardiac arrest, shock, trauma and sepsis. While the use of POCUS can make a significant impact in patient care and outcomes, knowing how to use the technology well is critical to its effectiveness.
The experience at the ultrasound and cadaver labs is dynamic and collaborative, according to Smith. Not only is it an effective setting for learning and practicing, but it also empowers nurses to trust in their clinical knowledge.
Smith recalls an unfortunate tragedy that occurred weeks after offering a similar educational session in the U.K. Nurses who had practiced POCUS skills had to put them into practice while caring for the victims of the bombing that occurred immediately following the Arianna Grande concert in Manchester in 2022.
“They had to insert intraosseous devices to save the lives of the victims, so they wrote to us to tell us how grateful they were for what they learned in our lab and how it made a difference in that tragic situation,” Smith explained. “It’s rewarding to see the difference we can make with these education sessions.”
The ultrasound and cadaver labs at Emergency Nursing 2024 require pre-registration and an additional fee.