USIG/International Project Summary
Summer 2013
Location: Armidale, NSW Australia
Duration of trip: 2.5 weeks
Please provide names and contact information for the following.
Student Travelers:
Jessamine Faustino faustinj@uci.edu
Chris Iwuchukwu cegboluc@uci.edu
Nicole Kiyohara nkiyohar@uci.edu
James Mattson jrmattso@uci.edu
Tatiana Ramage tramage@uci.edu
Faculty Advisors:
Dr. Chris Fox, UCI jfox@uci.edu
(Dr. Peter Mckeown has resigned as Head of School at UNE, and a recruitment process is underway. Please email Kristy Chmieluk or Amanda Nagle for further inquiries.)
Amanda Nagle, Associate Professor, Year 1 Clinical Academic Coordinator amanda.nagle@une.edu.au
Other Important People:
Kristy Chmieluk, UNE Executive Assistant kristy.chmieluk@une.edu.au (she will be your main contact for the entire trip. She will give you your itinerary and take care of you for the duration of your stay at UNE. )
Adam Landow, UNE IT alandow@une.edu.au (all technology-related questions go to Adam)
Dr. Rod Martin, dr.rod.martin@me.com, dr.rod.martin@bigpond.com (contact him to set-up your rural clinical experience)
International Organization/University: University of New England School of Rural Medicine
Description of Project:
We partnered with the University of New England (UNE) School of Rural Medicine to provide a weeklong ultrasound bootcamp for their 1st, 2nd, and 5th year medical students. Our goal in facilitating the ultrasound workshops was to expose the medical students to ultrasound as well as teach them basic ultrasonography skills. We hope they will continue to improve their ultrasound skills and eventually feel confident to use them in their rural clinical placements and the rest of their medical careers. Currently, UNE does not have an extensive ultrasound curriculum. They plan to have a strong ultrasound program similar to that established at UCISOM sometime in the near future.
During our week at UNE, our team delivered lectures and served as ultrasound instructors. For the first years, we focused on knobology and finding the basic views of several organs (i.e. bladder, heart, liver, spleen, kidney, gallbladder). For the 2nd and 5th years, we also included pathological findings using CAEs and Sonosim. We structured 7 workshops for the 5th years to showcase the broad scope of the clinical applications of ultrasound including: pericardial effusion, pneumothorax, AAA examination, cardiac examination, thoracentesis with ultrasound, eFAST, peripheral cannulation with ultrasound, and foreign body localization with ultrasound. In the end, the workshops were a success and the students went home with some knowledge on basic ultrasound skills as evident by the assessments and direct feedback. We encouraged them to practice as much as possible to improve their sonography skills. They even formed their own Ultrasound Interest Group to continue learning about the wondrous applications of ultrasound! We plan to unite USIGs at both schools, UCI and UNE, in the upcoming year for a joint meeting via teleconference. UCI and UNE plan to continue this thriving relationship between the two medical schools and provide these workshops again next summer.
In addition to our project, during the week prior to the workshops UNE provided us with a weeklong rural clinical experience. We each spent half a week in Glenn Innes and the other half of the week in Tenterfield, both of which are rural, country towns in NSW. We were able to experience medicine with limited resources and provide care to a rural patient population.
Outlook for Summer 2014:
We hope that our annual ultrasound bootcamp at UNE will continue to flourish and improve with each successive year. The curriculum is subject to change based on many factors including availability of equipment and tutors, new ideas the next Australia group may come up with, physicians’ schedules, funding, etc.
Ultrasound machines/supplies:
– UNE provided U/S machines through Sonosite
– We brought 4 Sonosims for the workshops
Breakdown of budget/travel expenses:
| Airfare | Around $1700 per person | ||||||||||||
| Train from Sydney to Armidale | About $50 | ||||||||||||
| Housing | UNE took care of this during our stay. If you plan to stay in Australia longer to travel, hotels/ apartments can range between $50 and $80 per night, per person if you all stay together. For example, we paid about $50 per person, per night in Brisbane. | ||||||||||||
| Activities: Sydney Bridge Climb Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary Great Barrier Reef Day Tour | $200$40$589 (including snorkeling and flight) | ||||||||||||
| Nicole’s Estimated Expenses |
|
Travel Advice/Tips:
Please describe any travel advice or tips you have for the next group. This can include travel logistics (airports, buses), fun activities to do before or after the project etc.
– suggest purchasing a travel phone of some sort. At least one for the group in case you need to make an emergency call. None of us had phones but it would have been convenient to have one.
– Make sure suitcases are UNDER 25 kg and check baggage restrictions for all forms of transportation