The Section of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care in the Department of Surgery, Anaesthesia and Intensive Care at the University of the West Indies, Mona will host a two day Advanced Adult and Paediatric Airway Management Workshop on February 28 and March 1, 2009.

The Workshop is designed to improve the quality of undergraduate and postgraduate medical training in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean, in particular expose UWI students in anaesthesia to international practices through the staging of this workshop in collaboration of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine Department of Anesthesiology and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Department of Anesthesiology. Six faculty members from Vanderbilt will share in the Workshop. This is the first collaborative effort with such highly prestigious international medical schools by the Section of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care and forms an important aspect of Vanderbilt University’s international outreach program, a programme that aims to improve patient safety and training in anesthesia throughout the developing world.

Experience and knowledge of the airway management techniques are essential to prevent adverse outcomes such as exacerbation of cervical injury with worsening neurological function, inability to adequately secure the airway with resultant impaired oxygen delivery and brain injury. Competency in these advanced airway skills often means the difference between survival and death.

The Workshop is targeted at local and regional consultants, anaesthetists, emergency physicians, surgeons and internists, nurse anaesthetists, critical care resident nurses (RNs), EMTs and anaesthetic technicians. Admission is free.