This week, as the university celebrates Africa week, a cohort of faculty, fellows, and residents from the Department of Emergency Medicine (DEM) travelled halfway across the globe to Cairo, Egypt, for the African Conference on Emergency Medicine (AfCEM).
The AfCEM meeting is the preeminent conference on emergency medicine and critical care on the African continent. It is the flagship scientific meeting of the African Federation of Emergency Medicine (AFEM). In recent years, the AFEM has taken multiple steps to address the need for a cadre of clinicians, specializing in initial management and stabilization of patients with "life- or limb-threatening illnesses." Their efforts have led to the establishment of emergency medicine specialty training programs across Africa, as well as the founding of more than 10 emergency training programs during the past five years.
AFEM founded the African Journal of Emergency Medicine, a progressive academic journal that includes several hundred peer-reviewed articles on topics of importance to emergency medicine on the continent. In 2012, the AfCEM meeting was launched as the organization's scientific meeting, providing didactic teaching, research exposure, and skill-building through pre-conference workshops for practitioners from all over the continent.
In this third installment of the conference, the Yale DEM played a significant role. Dr. Hani Mowafi, Chief of the Section of Global Health and International Emergency Medicine (GHIEM) and Director of the GHIEM fellowship, served as international co-chair for the meeting. Faculty from the department also participated on the scientific review committee and gave a number of lectures throughout the conference. The ultrasound section of the DEM, chaired by Dr. Christopher L. Moore, along with a team of residents and fellows, led a two-day ultrasound pre-conference workshop. The use of ultrasound in the resource-limited setting is a timely topic given the low cost, effectiveness, and versatility of the tool. The implications of the section's attendance were well appreciated at the conference.
Written by Christine Ngaruiya, MD, MSc, DTM&H