Alumni

Pins on this map represent the primary communities served by our alumni from the program. If alumni work in many different rural locations, their most served or home sites are represented. 

Testimonials

I was selected to join the NEEP program in the spring 2019 cohort and wish to spread the word on how much it has affected my practice in rural emergency medicine. Prior to NEEP, I was practicing emergency medicine in my small community of Masset, on Haida Gwaii. I completed residency in 2016 but had not worked in a busy ER for many years and dreaded a critically ill patient in our small ER.
I had a few instances where I became overwhelmed when there were critically ill patients, and needed to rely on colleagues for support- more than I would like to confess to. Since NEEP, I have done a locum in a much busier ER than I have before as a staff physician and encountered several sick patients in Masset.
The knowledge and skills that I acquired in NEEP have made such a dramatic impact on my confidence in seeing and managing these patients. For example, intubating a comatose patient or thrombolyzing a STEMI. I feel strongly that it has affected my practice, my patients outcomes and my anxiety in the rural emergency department.
I can’t recommend this program enough for any rural physicians who work in the ER                                                                                                               -Jocelyn Black, Nanaimo Cohort 5

    The most surprising aspect of this program was how well thought out it was. After 25 yrs of General practice i went back into doing Acute Care in Remote locations and for the last 5 years have been designing my own curriculum by attending Conferences,ACLS,ATLS,CARE course,Casted,Ultrasound Workshops. In spite of these my worry levels only partially abated as my real life training intubating,thrombolysing,and sedating patients for bone setting or dislocations came on the job where I was a stand alone practitioner.As an example my procedural sedation skills came from another GP who showed me once,watched me once and then we parted ways. I had been yearning for a program like the SEME program at the U of T after coming into contact with another seasoned doctor like myself in Nunavut. He too had returned to Rural work after many years and described how fundamental it was to his confidence. Nothing like it existed in the rest of Canada until this one.

     The backbone of the Nanaimo Emergency Education Program lies in shift pairing with ER colleagues one on one so one could activate skills in Real life/Real time with minimal hand holding. In fact the most desired aspect of the program lays in Procedural shift days where one of the ERPs is designated to only do procedures on patients that had been triaged by regular ER physicians in order to maximize department Flow(in fact this ER Dept is rated number 2 in the country where they are seeing 180 to 200 patients daily).On these shifts one does the lumbar punctures,pleural taps,cardioversions,reductions and each Doctor has his own approach so one can be exposed to a variety of approaches and how they are defended. In remote areas one doesn’t do procedures that often and so fluency erodes over years and many of my small town colleagues are smitten by the concept as it is one of their highest stress burdens.

      Ultrasound is an essential aspect of care and Nanaimo has some the National leaders in this-in fact the POCUS text has chapters written by them and these teachers are exacting. Image generation is the difficult part and they coach you methodically to enhance your aptitude but also not to “call it” if you don’t “see it”.They actually take you to full IP accreditaion(Independant Practitioner) which for those who have wanted to be adept in Ultrasound takes many conferences and over 7,000$ (and this is just course fees not travel and hotel costs)

     The teaching is spirited,up to date, and transmiited in an air of ease. They want you to “get it”. Academic days are regularly interspersed and with the small group format there is plenty of room for discussion and all of come from a place of needing to know not just wishing to know as we have all been in situations where we wished we could have done better for our patients. Formal lectures are followed by Simulation sessions in a state of the art lab to further hone skills.

    So we have 1. Skill enhancement 2. Up to Date Knowledge 3. Learning where no one is between you and the patient 4. Roomy state of the art Emergency Department Design with great natural light and lesser frustration among patients as they are triaged by front line staff and move through the environs more quickly than any other department I have seen. Does it get any better? Argue with me if you want but the smile still won’t leave my face.

    I am writing this lengthy diatribe out of gratitude to such a well meaning and competent group of Physicians , Nurses, Resp techs, and administrative staff. It is one of the  times in my life that i got more than I wished for.

Special regard to Dr. Kevin Mcmeel who organized this – he talks the talk and walks the walk while setting an air of good humour about him – we all have had physicians like this in our training and wish they weren’t so rare. Also thanks to Natalina who actually doesn’t mind entertaining your scheduling whims and answers emails at the oddest hours -a true soldier for the cause.

                                                                                                                   -Daniel O’Connell, Nanaimo Cohort 1