Forget about the drama-filled scenes from Grey’s Anatomy and House – they’ve got nothing on the simulated trauma scene our University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ) students walked into at the Toowoomba RACQ LifeFlight Rescue hangar.
Four students from the University of Southern Queensland’s Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences (Medicine Pathway) program took part in the Pre-Hospital Trauma Day to experience the chaos and intensity of a simulated crash scene.
The trauma simulation was led by the RACQ LifeFlight Rescue Critical Care Doctors and Flight Paramedics who have real-life experience in these multi-trauma scenarios.
The University of Southern Queensland Medicine Pathway students worked alongside The University of Queensland (UQ) Doctor of Medicine students to enact the scene, triage the “patients”, and get everyone off to hospital safely.
Medicine Pathway student Nadula Tennakoon said it was exciting to see how the UQ medical students responded to the crash scene in which the UniSQ students were playing the patients.
“We were pretending to be bandaged up as trauma patients and we were allowed to yell and scream like actual trauma patients would, so it was exciting to see how the students would keep their cool,” Mr Tennakoon said.
It was this prospect of helping patients and saving lives which drew Mr Tennakoon towards medicine in the first place.
“It just seems like the most fulfilling thing you could possibly do,” he said.
Mr Tennakoon is in his first year of the University of Southern Queensland’s new Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences (Medicine Pathway) program.
Students who graduate from the Medicine Pathway program will be eligible to move directly into UQ’s Doctor of Medicine at the UQ Rural Clinical School in Toowoomba as part of the Darling Downs-South West Medical Pathway – a collaboration between the two universities, Darling Downs Health, and South-West Hospital and Health Service.
The University of Queensland Toowoomba Regional Clinical Unit Head Dr Doogie Whitcombe said the collaboration between the two universities was crucial in ensuring the future of rural health was in excellent hands.
“We’re well into our first year of this seven-year program, and it really is great for both organisations, but also for the community where workforce needs are huge at the moment,” Dr Whitcombe said.
“There is good evidence that if you select students from regional locations and train them in regional locations, they are far more likely to stay on as doctors in those regional locations in their future careers.
“It’s a great opportunity to get the two groups of students together and to give the UniSQ students a little idea of what awaits them in the future years.”
University of Southern Queensland Biomedical Science Professor Eliza Whiteside said she was pleased with the success of the Pre-Hospital Trauma Day and the involvement of the Medicine Pathway students.
“Engagement and outreach activities offered by key community organisations such as LifeFlight provide authentic work-integrated learning opportunities for our students and also build their relationships within our community,” she said.
For Nadula Tennakoon, the idea of delivering medicine in regional and rural communities was a driving force, pushing him toward his goals.
“When you go into medicine, you want to help those that need it the most. And we know that while rural health has taken leaps and bounds recently, there’s still a long way to go,” he said.
“I’m genuinely very excited to start working as a doctor. I know it’s a long way off, but if I do get into my goal of either sports medicine or surgery, I’m very excited to be able to really help the people who need it.”
Find out more about the University of Southern Queensland Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences (Medicine Pathway) program.
