The Irish Association for Emergency Medicine (IAEM) Annual Scientific Meeting will take place in the Castleknock Hotel in Dublin from 17-18 October 2018 and has been built around the theme of “changing hearts and minds”.
IAEM has been meeting for over 20 years and 2018 marks the 15th IAEM full Scientific Meeting. It promises to address important issues in Irish emergency medicine such as: Patient advocacy, critical care, challenges in modern physician resilience and wellness, female emergency medicine leaders, doctor migration and trainee education.
Emergency Medicine in Ireland cares for 1,300,000 attendances every year under the governance of about 100 consultants in adult and paediatric emergency medicine. For many patients, their arrival into an emergency department is for them, a time of crisis. A whole team of individuals provide care- teamwork is core to successful emergency medicine. Almost three quarters of patients are treated and discharged from the ED without needing to be admitted to a hospital bed. As the gatekeeper to an under-resourced acute health system emergency medicine is overstretched, and ‘ED trolley waits’ have become the proxy marker of lack of capacity within the public health service.
Despite these challenges, emergency medicine in Ireland is doing a remarkable job and our conference this year will celebrate that. The conference programme has been meticulously planned by Connolly Hospital emergency department’s local organising committee and covers a broad range of topics.
The opening plenary session on the first day, Thursday 18 October features a speaker panel discussing powerful patient and professional stories. Thursday’s programme features a cutting edge paediatric track. Critical care updates will showcase prehospital and retrieval medicine experiences. ‘Doing Things Differently’ is a track dedicated to important EM themes including shared decision making, communicating with the elderly patient as well as patients from diverse gender backgrounds.
The programme on the second day, Friday 19 October, opens with a discussion of education in Emergency Medicine – critical to the development of future emergency medicine leaders. Later that day, doctor migration is explored in detail. The Clinical Pearls section also promises to be hugely popular for the audience. Friday will be rounded out by a major emergency planning track and trainee research presentations awards. This year, Dr Mark Doyle will deliver the closing address as he reflects on his career in emergency medicine.
Point of care ultrasound (POCUS) will feature prominently in this year’s meeting with 2 parallel pre-conference workshops taking place on Wednesday 17 October in the Castleknock Hotel. Focussed ultrasound used by the treating physician at the bedside, at the point of care has revolutionised the practice of modern Emergency Medicine. Patients are diagnosed faster and therapy is started earlier. Focussed Intensive Care ECHO (FICE) is an international course held in Ireland for the first time in partnership with IAEM and the Joint Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine of Ireland. This workshop offers successful participants internationally-recognised accreditation in focussed echo and is a starting point for more advanced ECHO. Rapid Ultrasound in Shock and Hypotension (RUSH) workshop will also be offered this at this year’s conference. Expert faculty from Ireland and the UK will teach the core principles of resuscitation through ultrasound in a highly engaging and interactive workshop. There are a few places still available on these workshops, go to www.iaem.ie to register. IAEM is delighted to offer the chance to experience ‘Reassembled, Slightly Askew’ by artist Shannon Yee at this year’s meeting in the Thinking Factory in the Castleknock Hotel. This is an autobiographical, audio-based artwork about Shannon’s experience of falling critically ill and her journey of rehabilitation. This is a unique immersive experience and a highlight of the programme. Ireland’s EM diaspora is respected around the world and will assemble in October in Dublin alongside international colleagues from the UK, United States and Australia. IAEM in 2018 features a majority of female speakers reflecting change in the modern emergency medicine workplace.
The Irish emergency medicine community are active users of social media and keen followers of the FOAMed (free open access medical education) movement. Follow this year’s conference highlights on twitter using <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/18IAEM?src=hash”>#18IAEM</a> and <a href=”https://twitter.com/assocemergmedie?lang=en”>@AssocEmergMedIE</a>. If you would like to attend, visit <a href=”http://www.iaem.ie/”>www.iaem.ie</a> to register for the conference.
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