The Department of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, located at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, has been ranked as one of the top Department of Pediatrics in the United States by U.S. News for the last 10 years. As a longtime partner of the OMI, this week’s Salzburg CHOP seminar in Pediatric Emergency Medicine took place for the 26th time, hosting 33 fellows from 29 various countries. There was a large diversity of backgrounds among fellows, bringing participants from countries such as Ghana, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Rwanda, and more.
Dr. Nicholas Tsarouhas, Attending Physician in Pediatric Emergency Medicine at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, served as the course director for the week. Dr. Burkhard Simma, Head of Department of Child and Adolescent Medicine at the Children’s Hospital Feldkirch, co-led the course and participated in an OMI seminar for the 12th time. Dr. Richard J. Scarfone, Dr. Ellen Szydlowski, and Dr. Archana Verma, all from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, completed the faculty.
The faculty put together a strong program for fellows, including 20 didactic lectures covering topics such as Status Epilepticus, Anaphylaxis, Cervical Spine Trauma, Sepsis Guidelines, Surgical Emergencies, and more. On Monday afternoon, Dr. Szydlowski and Dr. Verma hosted “minor procedures workshops” for the group, in which various procedures were reviewed, including digital blocks, stuck ring removal, fishhook removal, trephination of subungual hematomas, intraosseous (IO) needle placement, and G tube and tracheostomy replacement.
Tuesday afternoon offered the main hands-on workshop, which consisted of fellows rotating between various scenarios. The emergencies that fellows were faced with at each station included a two-month-old baby facing SIDS, a five-year-old boy facing septic shock, and a 15-year-old teenager dealing with multisystem trauma. Fellows had to work together to brainstorm and ensure the correct steps would be taken to care for the pediatric emergencies. Additionally, fellows were able to learn from a video guided intubation as well as practice pediatric and adult CPR using high fidelity mannequins that were able to deliver real-time feedback. The workshop would not have been possible without the support of our vendors from Laerdal, Michael Grabner and Oliver Wolf.
During the free afternoon on Wednesday, fellows and faculty used the opportunity to explore the beautiful city of Salzburg, including the festive Christmas markets. Thursday afternoon allowed fellows to present cases from their own personal work experience, which instigated a lot of interesting conversation among faculty and fellows. Six cases were chosen by the faculty as excellent case presentations, which will be published on the OMI’s online case library. A chamber music concert, exclusively for the OMI, was performed in the grand hall at Schloss Arenberg on Thursday evening. A three-course dinner, complete with the distribution of certificates, took place on Friday evening for the graduation dinner.
