Publications by authors named "Mastoras G"

Objectives: Simulation-based technical skills training is now ubiquitous in medicine, particularly for high acuity, low occurrence (HALO) procedures. Mastery learning and deliberate practice (ML + DP) are potentially valuable educational methods, however, they are resource intensive. We sought to compare the effect of deliberate practice and mastery learning versus self-guided practice on skill performance of the rare, life-saving procedure, a bougie-assisted cricothyroidotomy (BAC).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada, an Emergency Standard of Care for Major Surge was created to establish a uniform process for the "triage" of finite critical care resources. This proposed departure from usual clinical care highlighted the need for an educational tool to prepare physicians for making and communicating difficult triage decisions. We created a just-in-time, virtual, simulation-based curriculum and evaluated its impact for our group of academic Emergency Physicians.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Providing care in a twenty-first century urban emergency department (ED) and trauma center is a complex high-pressure practice environment. The pressure is intensified during patient surge scenarios commonly seen during mass casualty incidents, such that response must be practiced regularly. Beyond clinical mastery of individual patient trauma care, a coordinated system-level response is essential to optimize patient care during these relatively infrequent events.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Maintaining and enhancing competence in the breadth of emergency medicine (EM) is an ongoing challenge. In particular, resuscitative care in EM involves high-risk clinical encounters that demand strong procedural skills, effective team leadership, and up-to-date clinical knowledge. Simulation-based medical education is an effective modality for enhancing technical and nontechnical skills in crisis situations and has been effectively embedded in undergraduate and postgraduate medical curricula worldwide.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: Disaster-preparedness and response are a commonly overlooked aspect of hospital policy and can frequently be outdated and undertested. Simulation-based education has become a core education modality within Canadian medical training programs. We hypothesized that integrating in situ simulation (ISS) into a hospital-wide, mass-casualty response exercise would enhance realism and our ability to identify latent safety threats (LSTs).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: Emergency department (ED) resuscitation is a complex, high-stakes procedure where positive outcomes depend on effective interactions between the health care team, the patient, and the environment. Resuscitation teams work in dynamic environments and strive to ensure the timely delivery of necessary treatments, equipment, and skill sets when required. However, systemic failures in this environment cannot always be adequately anticipated, which exposes patients to opportunities for harm.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Simulation is becoming a popular educational modality for physician continuing professional development (CPD). This study sought to characterize how simulation-based CPD (SBCPD) is being used in Canada and what academic emergency physicians (AEPs) desire in an SBCPD program.

Methods: Two national surveys were conducted from March to June 2018.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to assess which audit and feedback metrics were most valuable to physicians in a specific healthcare region, highlighting the overabundance of metrics driven by regulations.
  • A web-based survey with 104 emergency medicine physicians gathered opinions on 49 clinical practice metrics, their readiness for participating in such activities, and data confidentiality preferences.
  • Results showed high interest in audit and feedback, with top metrics including emergency department return rates and collegiality assessments, while also revealing minor disparities based on gender and practice type.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: Extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation in refractory cardiac arrest (ECPR) is an emerging resuscitative therapy that has shown promising results for selected patients who may not otherwise survive. We sought to identify the characteristics of cardiac arrest patients presenting to our institution to begin assessing the feasibility of an ECPR program.

Methods: This retrospective health records review included patients aged 18-75 years old presenting to our academic teaching hospital campuses with refractory nontraumatic out-of-hospital or in-emergency department (ED) cardiac arrest over a 2-year period.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Simulation plays an integral role in the Canadian healthcare system with applications in quality improvement, systems development, and medical education. High-quality, simulation-based research will ensure its effective use. This study sought to summarize simulation-based research activity and its facilitators and barriers, as well as establish priorities for simulation-based research in Canadian emergency medicine (EM).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Importance: Emergency resuscitation of critically ill patients can challenge team communication and situational awareness. Tools facilitating team performance may enhance patient safety.

Objectives: To determine resuscitation team members' perceptions of the Situational Awareness Display's utility.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Unlabelled: Effective teamwork in ED resuscitations, including information sharing and situational awareness, could be degraded. Technological cognitive aids can facilitate effective teamwork.

Objective: This study focused on the design of an ED situation display and pilot test its influence on teamwork and situational awareness during simulated resuscitation scenarios.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: In order to enhance patient safety during resuscitation of critically ill patients, we need to optimize team communication and enhance team situational awareness but little is known about resuscitation team communication patterns. The objective of this study is to understand how teams communicate during resuscitation; specifically to assess for a shared mental model (organized understanding of a team's relationships) and information needs.

Methods: We triangulated 3 methods to evaluate resuscitation team communication at a tertiary care academic trauma center: (1) interviews; (2) simulated resuscitation observations; (3) live resuscitation observations.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF