STARS hosts Transport Physician Conference

First-ever event of its kind elevates patient care practices

Given the nature of the profession and the unpredictable world of first responders, transport physicians have seen everything. Well, nearly everything.

So, STARS took measures to expand the already considerable experience base of our doctors.

In November 2023, as part of the first-ever Transport Physicians Conference, representatives from all of the STARS bases — Grande Prairie, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg — participated in seminars at the University of Calgary’s cadaver lab. Local experts ran the sessions, with the aim of “elevating the game of our transport physicians,” said Dr. Paul Tourigny.

Quickly, the value of the program was established.

Dr. John Froh, chief medical officer of STARS, indicated that there are already plans to organize future get-togethers, emphasizing the upside of education that is tailored to the skills of medical crews.

“Having something we can build in-house that is world-class and addresses all of those needs,” he says, “it really does align with STARS’ commitment to education, innovation, and research.”

“There’s a lot to gain by having lots of highly educated and well-trained people in the same room to share ideas.”
— Dr. Chase Krook, STARS transport physician

Of the STARS roster of physicians, nearly 60 were able to attend, taking advantage of the unique learning opportunity, the focus of which had been gaining familiarity with emergency situations that are uncommon — but not unheard of — in the field.

This knowledge-broadening approach is expected to enhance in-person and virtual delivery of emergency health care.

“What we taught might be things that will happen once in a physician’s career,” said Tourigny, who is based in Calgary. “Some of us have had the misfortune to do these things several times. And these are rare procedures — drilling through bone to relieve pressure inside a brain, doing things to relieve the pressure on an eyeball, performing a surgical airway when we can’t access someone’s airway through their nose or their mouth.

“(At the conference) I got to see all of these people who have just got an immense amount of respect for doing incredible things, teaching each other, learning from each other, telling stories.”

For the critical procedures training, the lab offered a variety of stations and, crucial to the hands-on aspect of the lessons, the presence of cadavers. “Which we don’t always have available to practise on,” said Dr. Jocelyn Andruko, who works out of the Winnipeg base. “Doing all of these procedures on real human bodies was extra special and extra helpful because then you can talk to someone who has genuinely done it before and get their tips in real time as you’re practising.”

This marked the first time an event had been staged for the transport physicians of STARS. That, too, was meaningful for participants — not only to learn as a group, but also to get to know each other. “There’s a lot to gain by having lots of highly educated and well-trained people in the same room to share ideas,” said Dr. Chase Krook, part of the STARS crew in Calgary.

While the names of peers from across Western Canada were familiar — from emails, phone calls, medical charts — the weekend’s activities, in a lot of cases, served as the official real-life introduction.

“It fosters a lot more organization-wide unity,” Andruko said of the conference. “It’ll certainly feel easier to hand off patients or unite in projects or do other things together with people from the other places after something like this.”