Major Trauma Life Support course (MTLS) 25 CPD points

A bespoke trauma education blended learning course, designed for doctors, nurses, and allied healthcare professionals involved in acute trauma care.

25 CPD points (issued by the School of Medicine, Cardiff University)

This course has been developed to address the teaching and training need in acute trauma care and takes advantage of:

• high-fidelity simulation facilities (at Cardiff University’s Emergency Medicine Academic Centre (EMAC))
• small group teaching
• highly skilled and experienced faculty (with years of experience of working in both Emergency Departments and the pre-hospital environment).

Who it’s for

This course is designed specifically for healthcare professionals involved in acute trauma care. Doctors, Nurses, Trauma Nurse Practitioners, and Allied Health Professionals managing acute trauma will find this course relevant and applicable to their clinical practice.

Course content has been created in alignment with national trauma guidelines, nursing and medical curricular requirements, and the South Wales Trauma Network (SWTN) standard operating procedures. The content is appropriate for healthcare professionals working both within Wales and throughout the rest of the UK.

What you’ll learn

The overall aim of the course is to ensure that high quality trauma care is delivered to patients, through the provision of relevant and contemporary trauma education. On completion of this clinical blended CPD course, delegates should be able to:

• describe the Trauma Care Pathway and apply non-technical skills to trauma care
• appropriately prepare for the arrival of a trauma patient following a structured pre-alert
• perform a primary survey of a trauma patient using the cABCDE approach
• recall the indications for major haemorrhage protocol activation and techniques for controlling external haemorrhage
• perform basic airway manoeuvres and use adjuncts to temporarily manage a patient’s airway
• describe safe spinal immobilisation
• define shock and list its main causes in trauma patients
• describe the immediate and ongoing management of a patient with head trauma
• describe the techniques of warming and cooling trauma patients
• describe the physiology of elderly, pregnant, and paediatric patients and the important considerations for theses patients in a trauma context
• outline the important considerations for bariatric trauma patients, and those patients with challenging behaviour and/or communication difficulties
• describe the immediate and ongoing management of burns and spinal trauma
• recognise common features of non-accidental injury and describe the referral process to social services and safeguarding teams
• outline the key considerations of organ and tissue donation in trauma
• outline the importance of and describe a secondary survey
• recognise the importance of debrief in trauma care

Topics covered

Pre-course learning (18 hours)

The eLearning consists of 6 modules (Trauma overview; Receiving the trauma patient; Assessing the trauma patient; Patient groups in trauma; Considerations in trauma; Discharge and transfer), with multiple sub-modules in each unit. There are optional formative questions to test knowledge also. All course material will be provided for 6 weeks before and 6 weeks after the face-to-face course.

Face to face course (7 hours)

The face to face component is where delegates will be working in small groups to develop their skills with guidance from high performing emergency physicians through simulation and extensive debrief and discussion. The following is the timetable for the day:

Post-course 'open book' eAssessment (1 hour)

The post-course eAssessment will open following the face-to-face component. It can be sat in an open-book asynchronous fashion within 6 weeks of the end of the face-to-face course.

Benefits

This course has been issued with 25 CPD points. Other benefits include:

• blended delivery approach: eLearning component allows you to learn flexibly, in your own time, while the face-to-face session offers practical multidisciplinary peer learning
• teaching is aligned with contemporary UK clinical practice
• the MTLS faculty are clinical experts in acute trauma care
• competitive fees compared to alternative trauma courses
• once you have completed the course, you become an MTLS alumni and we will send you a tri-annual update with key alterations to guidelines or policies
• MTLS alumni have the opportunity to apply for faculty positions following successful completion
• MTLS alumni are invited to reattend every 4 years to maintain contemporary trauma practice
• For nurse attendees, this course meets Level 1 and Level 2 curricular requirements for annual appraisal
• For emergency medicine doctors and allied health professionals, this course meets national curricular requirements for annual appraisal
• For South Wales nurse attendees, this course meets the SWTN Level 2 curricular requirements as per National Major Trauma Nursing Group competencies following local peer review.

Directions

This course takes place at the Emergency Medicine Academic Centre (EMAC) Education Suite, located on Floor 2, Tower Block 2/A, University Hospital of Wales.

Location