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Evaluation of the Terror and Disaster Surgical Care course

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European Journal of Trauma and Emergency Surgery Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Background

Mass-casualty terrorist incidents are a medical and organisational challenge for every hospital. The Terror and Disaster Surgical Care (TDSC®) course was developed because such incidents are associated with special injury patterns, escalating situations, and surges of casualties and haemodynamically unstable patients requiring treatment and can overwhelm the resources of hospitals.

Materials and methods

The course currently lasts two-and-a -half days and is designed for 18–21 experienced surgeons, anaesthetists and clinical emergency physicians (who form groups of three for the tabletop simulation game). From 2017 to 2019, a total of 20 courses with 437 participants were conducted. The data in this study were collected from these 437 participants.

Results

Most of the participants were male (82%); 64% of participants specialised in a major field of surgery (general surgery, visceral surgery, vascular surgery, trauma surgery and orthopaedics). At the time of the course, most participants (86%) were department heads, senior physicians or specialists. The tabletop simulation game, which was specifically developed for the course, as well as the presentations were rated good to very good. The result of the overall course evaluation, which included aspects such as organisation, professionalism, content and teaching, was on average 1.34 and thus very good.

Discussion

The TDSC course complements already established courses and provides training in tactical surgical care after hospital admission. The TDSC course integrates and builds on elements of individualised trauma care such as the primary survey and the extended focused assessment with sonography in trauma (eFAST). This underlines again that it complements and does not replace other course formats. We can conclude that the presentations and the tabletop simulation game were well suited to the target group and that the participants were able to increase their knowledge of this complex subject.

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Author information

Author notes

  1. Axel Franke and Dan Bieler contributed equally to this manuscript and are joint first authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Trauma Surgery and Orthopaedics, Reconstructive and Hand Surgery, Burn Medicine, German Armed Forces Central Hospital Koblenz, Rübenacher Strasse 170, 56072, Koblenz, Germany

    Dan Bieler & Axel Franke

  2. Academy for Trauma Surgery (Akademie Der Unfallchirurgie GmbH), Berlin, Germany

    Markus Blätzinger & Johannes Sturm

  3. Faculty of Health, Witten Herdecke University, Student Dean Office, Witten, Germany

    Marzellus Hofmann

  4. Department of Trauma Surgery and Orthopaedics, Reconstructive and Septic Surgery, Sportstraumatology, German Armed Forces Hospital Ulm, Oberer Eselsberg 40, 89081, Ulm, Germany

    Benedikt Friemert & Gerhard Achatz

  5. Department for Orthopaedics and Trauma Surgery, Heinrich Heine University Hospital Duesseldorf, Moorenstr. 5, 40225, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Dan Bieler

Authors
  1. Dan Bieler
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  2. Axel Franke
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  3. Markus Blätzinger
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  4. Marzellus Hofmann
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  5. Johannes Sturm
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  6. Benedikt Friemert
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  7. Gerhard Achatz
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Consortia

The Deployment, Disaster, Tactical Surgery Working Group of the German Trauma Society

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dan Bieler.

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Conflict of interest

DB and GA are instructors of the TDSC course. AF and BF are directors of the TDSC course. DB, AF, BF and GA developed the TDSC course concept. MH is the educator of the TDSC course. MB and JS are executive directors of the AUC GmbH which offers the TDSC course.

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Bieler, D., Franke, A., Blätzinger, M. et al. Evaluation of the Terror and Disaster Surgical Care course. Eur J Trauma Emerg Surg 46, 709–716 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00068-020-01418-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00068-020-01418-w

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