Emergency medicine continues to grow in Laos (officially Lao People’s Democratic Republic, or Lao PDR) with the Emergency Medicine Residency training program. The program is three years long and is supported by Health Frontiers and the University of Health Sciences in Vientiane, Lao PDR.
The program will be graduating the first class of eight residents in August 2020. These residents will be the leaders of emergency medicine in the country, as they will spearhead emergency practice and training in their home hospitals in the capital and across the country.
The second annual conference on emergency medicine, titled “Future Collaboration of EM—Going to the Next Stage Together,” included doctors, nurses, EMTs, police, and even civil engineers from Lao PDR, Japan, and France. The conference was well attended by Lao physicians, nurses, and EMS volunteers from both the capital as well as from across nine provinces in Lao PDR. The keystone of this event was the announcement of the Lao Society of Emergency Medicine (LaoSEM). Now Lao PDR can become a part of larger organizations such as the Asian Society of Emergency Medicine and the International Federation of Emergency Medicine.
The addition of the Rosh Review question bank to the University of Health Sciences Emergency Medicine training program will further help with resident assessment. Health Frontiers supports the residency program by providing an EM physician to teach and coordinate the program. The coordinator uses multiple-choice questions, case-based discussion, bedside teaching, and patient/procedure logbooks to assess the residents. The Rosh Review question bank will help the program when a coordinator is unavailable and when much of the assessment will need to be done remotely.