New Emergency Endoscopy Course For Gastroenterology Trainees

IntroductionCurrent emergency endoscopy training for gastroenterology trainees is lacking. A pre-course survey of trainees within our trust demonstrated that almost 60% of registrars on the rota at Imperial College NHS Trust did not feel comfortable in emergency upper gastrointestinal (GI)therapy.MethodsAll gastroenterology trainees and fellows across all three Imperial College NHS Trust sites were invited to attend an afternoon course on emergency endoscopy. The course was supported by Pentax, Olympus and Cook who supplied equipment to help in the demonstration and practical sessions. Section 1 of the course consisted of lecture and demonstration-based sessions including: management of peptic ulcer bleeding management of variceal bleeding Sengstaken-Blakemore tube insertion management of post ERCP bleeding stack set up & trouble shooting use of Hemospray Section 2 consisted of practical wet laboratory sessions on ex vivo porcine models where delegates were able to manage simulated active ulcer and variceal bleeding.ResultsThe course was oversubscribed. 19 gastroenterology trainees and 5 nurses attended. A post course survey was sent out to and responded by all attending trainees. The following responses were obtained: All lecture and demonstration-based sessions scored 4.7 out of 5 and above for content and presentation. In particular, the wet lab, practical sessions were felt to be the most useful and delegates rated this highly in terms of decision making and skills development. Further comments highlighted that trainees valued the course as a forum to discuss specific cases and queries on the management of GI bleeding. All trainees were happy with the overall organisation of the course scoring it an average of 4.9 out of 5. All trainees indicated that they would recommend the course to others and in addition, some suggested that the course should be mandatory prior to going on to a GI bleed rota.ConclusionsMany trainees feel unprepared prior to going on to an emergency out of hours endoscopy rota. We have successfully run the first emergency endoscopy course at Imperial College NHS Trust with positive feedback indicating that our trainees now feel better prepared in the management of emergency upper GI bleeding. There are few courses available in therapeutic endoscopy focused on the management of upper GI bleeding and attendance on a therapeutic endoscopy course is not mandatory prior to going on to a GI bleed rota. It is likely that trainees across the country may also feel inexperienced and ill equipped prior to starting on a GI bleed rota. We suggest that attendance on an emergency endoscopy therapeutics course should be a mandatory requirement for all gastroenterology trainees.