Our academics’ research focuses on clinical and medical education, and prehospital medicine
Our academics’ research focuses on clinical and medical education from developing teaching for junior doctors; applying clinical skills to students and trainees that require additional support; enhancing medical students’ leadership skills through student selected components (SSCs); improving general practitioners’ knowledge through government education campaigns; using paramedics to teach future doctors prehospital medicine skills; and investigating the facilitator’s role in London’s Air Ambulance’s simulation moulage training.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Graham Easton’s team in the Clinical and Communication Skills Unit are working with actors to help medical students learn about video and telephone consultations, which have become the norm in general practice during the crisis. We are having to accelerate and scale up our teaching - and do it online. We have launched a podcast about clinical communication skills to support health professionals and as a resource for students. It covers topics like communicating in PPE protective kit (including sign language), sharing best practice across teams and countries, breaking bad news, and video and telephone consultations in primary care.
A specialist emergency service, which takes senior doctors and state-of-the-art medical equipment on the road, is successfully treating many patients at the scene, potentially avoiding almost 1,000 ambulance trips to hospital and saving over £500,000 a year.
The research was undertaken by the Physician Response Unit (PRU) team which includes clinicians from Barts Health NHS Trust, and also Queen Mary University of London’s Professor Danë Goodsman.
The PRU is a collaboration between the Trust, London’s Air Ambulance Charity and the London Ambulance Service, which takes the emergency department to the patient, delivering safe and effective emergency care in the community.
The latest research, published in the Emergency Medicine Journal, shows that many patients seeking emergency care via ambulance can be managed outside hospital using the PRU, which is based at The Royal London Hospital and responds to 999 calls in northeast London. Staffed with a senior emergency doctor, in addition to an emergency ambulance crew clinician, the doctor’s experience enables the PRU team to treat a wider range of illnesses and injuries at the scene.
The PRU car carries advanced medication, equipment and treatments usually only found in hospital, such as instant-result blood tests, urine tests and sutures to stitch serious wounds. It also has a computer with access to patients’ electronic records, allowing the team to review hospital and GP notes.
Barts Health, London’s Air Ambulance and the London Ambulance Service were the first in the UK to set up a PRU, launched in 2001. The innovative model has since been implemented across the UK, including in Wales, Oxford and Lincoln, with other parts of the country also looking to develop similar services.
Professor Goodsman, who was recently appointed the first Professor of Prehospital Medical Education in the world, said: “Queen Mary has been in the vanguard of developing prehospital medical education, and we have helped define and shape what is a relatively new specialty.
“The PRU is not only good for patients and for hard-pressed A&E services, it also provides exceptional training opportunities for the students on our ground-breaking courses.”
Image: Physician Response Unit car. Credit: London's Air Ambulance Charity