Trauma Care Training across Ukraine
The number of civilian injuries, deaths, displacement, and trauma has continued since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. Children have not been spared; unfortunately, thousands of these casualties are children. Additionally, attacks have severely damaged educational and healthcare facilities, undermining access to essential services.
In response to this humanitarian crisis, International Medical Corps engaged with the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, the national health cluster, healthcare facilities, and healthcare workers to strengthen capacity in trauma care. Partnering with the Harvard Humanitarian Initaitive (HHI) and International Medical Corps, clinicans in the Children in Crisis Program developed, piloted and scaled two courses:
- Pediatric Trauma Fundamentals (for nurses and physicians)
- Trauma Nursing Fundamentals (co-developed with Lindsey Martin DNP, MSN, RN, ACACNP at Massachusetts General Hospital)
Pediatric Trauma Fundamentals is a novel two-day, open-access course, conceptualized and developed internally by a core group of pediatric emergency medicine physicians and nurses. Content was derived from several sources, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and International Committee of the Red Cross Basic Emergency Care, advanced trauma life support, and the Boston Children’s Global Health Program pediatric resuscitation course. Educational delivery modalities included didactic frontal lectures, hands-on skills stations, interactive case discussions, and team-based simulation scenarios. The two-day schedule was adapted as needed for safety/security considerations, which included tailoring course start and end times based on travel requirements, daily safety/security briefs, and preference of students. Supplementary PTF videos were developed for high-yield topics in pediatric trauma. Links were provided for students during the course and made publicly available on YouTube for continuing learning. During the 19-month educational intervention, 505medical providers were trained in PTF across eight cities in Ukraine. Importantly, this included a cohort of 60 participants in the PTF ToT (instructor) courses. This course has also been translated into Arabic and piloted in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt).
Similarly, the Trauma Nursing Fundamentals course is an innovative training package, designed for and by nurses, to train bedside nurses to care for injured persons across the lifespan. This open access course was designed in a modular format so it can be easily tailored to the level of the learners and local injury patterns. While this curriculum was designed, piloted and scaled in the conflict context of Ukraine, it was modified and scaled to areas without war trauma (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Uganda). This course was taught to over 600 learners (>500 nurses, physicians and feldshers) across the country, prioritizing the eastern front lines. The team trained XX clinicians to be ToT instructors, who successfully independently led courses from September 2023-June 2024.
For both courses, a “train the trainer” (ToT) component was developed. Inaddition to the two-day PTF and TNF courses, three additional days of a total five-day course included one day on adult learning and teaching theory and two days on flipped classroom, student-driven didactic, skills, and simulation practices. A third curriculum was developed for a third cohort of “master instructor trainers” who were selected for their commitment to assume the role of ‘trainer-of-trainers’ for future sustainability of the courses.
Additionally, an asynchronous trauma training Save a Life video series was launched to expand the reach of trauma knowledge across the country. These 27 videos, posted on International Medical Corps’ YouTube channel, received an impressive 1.7 million views within Ukraine within the first year of being launched.
The final phase of the project, completed in July 2024, aimed to integrate trauma care programs into Ukrainian education and professional development systems, addressing the high demand for advanced courses, including Training of Trainers (ToT) sessions. The focus was on enhancing the infrastructure and teaching capabilities of six selected Ukrainian universities and EMS agencies known for their academic and research excellence. The plan involved expanding the instructor pool, providing equipment, and designating training coordinators to ensure quality. Courses were led by national instructors with minimal international support, resulting in better course evaluations, test scores, and confidence gains compared to internationally led courses. The phase also established a consortium of national institutions through formal agreements and a Master Trainer conference to ensure long-term sustainability.