Emergency training

About two dozen OUWB students recently took part in special training designed to help people understand what to do should they encounter someone bleeding badly.

The Association of Women Surgeons (AWS) at OUWB presented the “Stop the Bleed” session at Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak.

Stop the Bleed is a national awareness campaign and a call to action. The purpose of the campaign is “to make our nation more resilient by better preparing the public to save lives if people nearby are severely bleeding.”

Sessions essentially focus on the importance of stopping bleeding and three quick actions to control serious bleeding: applying pressure to wounds; how to pack wounds; and how to apply a tourniquet.

Catherine Barkach, M2, said the event was for medical students only and designed to be “extra practice.”

“You never know when an emergency is going to happen so it’s helpful to quickly be able to refer back to this experience and hands-on practice,” said Barkach.

According to its website, the Stop the Bleed campaign “is the result of a collaborative effort led by the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma (ACS COT) to bring knowledge of bleeding control to the public. The ACS COT, and specifically the EMS subcommittee with its many collaborative relationships, provided the perfect environment for this program to grow into the critical success that it is today.”

The evolution of the program was influenced by world events.

In 2012, 20 children and eight adults were casualties from a tragic mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. A concerned local trauma surgeon who was the chair of the Connecticut State Committee on Trauma and an ACS Regent, Lenworth M. Jacobs, Jr., M.D., convened a panel of national experts to evaluate the response to such emergencies.

The group met several times and developed expert recommendations on how to improve survival for people with severe bleeding.

Stop the Bleed launched in 2015, and has since trained more than 1.5 million people — students, teachers, community groups, and more.

The local event was led by Anthony Iacco, M.D., a surgeon at Beaumont and assistant professor in OUWB’s Department of Surgery. 

Iacco said he wanted attendees to understand that they can help a patient “with a few simple tools and a little bit of knowledge.”

He said the training is especially useful for medical students.

“The course is designed to inform them about the topic and teach about bleeding control, but more importantly for this particular group, make them aware of the course so they can teach other people,” said Iacco.  

Students generally expressed appreciation and excitement for the opportunity to participate in the in-person training.

Konstantinos Koustas, M2, said the session was a great opportunity to learn beyond the books.

“It’s practical knowledge that we’re probably going to use one day,” he said.

Koustas added that it felt good to be learning with his classmates in an in-person setting.

“This opportunity to socialize in a safe environment and practice physical skills is amazing,” he said.

Anne Heukwa, M1, also was happy to participate in person and said “it’s always good to have extra training.”

“Having this training before getting into an (operating room) is a good thing,” she said.

Nitin Venkatesh, M1, said it was great to connect with classmates and meet new people. The training was especially useful, too, he said.

“We’ve been learning so much of the science behind everything, to get some practical skills is definitely useful for the future,” he said.