37 College of Anaesthesiologists of Ireland | Annual Report 2020
Education Committee
The Education Committee felt that it was important to overcome the challenges of COVID-19 and use the opportunity to digitise our CAI educational content following the cancellation of the Annual Congress in May 2020. The Delaney Medal competition, sponsored by Fannin, showcases the best research carried out by trainees in anaesthesiology, critical care and pain medicine in Ireland. The 2020 competition was conducted virtually in June, although with a limited audience of CAI Council members, organisers and the international judging panel chaired by Prof J Laffey. The competition was won by Dr Dylan Finnerty for his project “A Prospective, Randomised, Double-Blind Clinical Trial comparing Erector Spinae Plane Block with Serratus Anterior Plane Block for Quality of Recovery and Morbidity after Minimally Invasive Thoracic Surgery”. One of the panel of judges, Professor Adam Sapirstein of Johns Hopkins Medical Centre, US described Dr Finnerty’s work as “A tour de force project and presentation”. The competition reflected well on the applicants and their supervisors, but also on the CAI for continuing to support academic endeavour of genuine quality. President of the College, Dr Brian Kinirons said “My only regret is that more of our community did not get the opportunity to experience this impressive event live”. A digital summary of the meeting is available on the college website. Our first CAI webinar titled “Delivery of Non COVID services in a COVID environment” was in June 2020, and involved a number of national speakers presenting on a restart of surgical services and adaptive work patterns to accommodate pandemic COVID-19. The success of these early events gave us the confidence to provide more online education, and with the help of our media partners DV4, the college have developed new CPD virtual events for our trainees, fellows and affiliates. The first CAI: Thought Leaders in Perioperative Medicine Webinar, the first Sustainability Webinar & The National Intensive Care
COVID Research & Scientific Conference all took place in September 2020. This meeting also offered an opportunity for trainees to present novel research reports on COVID-19. Online educational resources to support sustainability in clinical practice have been developed and are embedded in the college website. The National Intensive Care Conference followed the ICU 4 U Charity Cycle by a group of Intensive Care doctors, nurses and staff from all over Ireland, which raised in excess of €100,000 in aid of four charities supporting people specifically affected by the COVID-19 crisis. In November, the National Patient Safety Meeting was delivered. The focus was “Safety outside the OT” and “Safety and Learning” with a panel of high-quality national and international speakers. The KP Moore competition was conducted during this meeting, and won by Dr Michael Ma on the topic ‘Anaesthetic Education in Medication Safety – The Use of Simulation Debrief to Improve Standards of Care’. A prize was also awarded for the best safety podcast A Storm Approaches – Preparing for a Pandemic by Dr Bryan Reidy. In keeping with the important theme of safety, Dr Michael Ryan (Executive Director of the World Health Organisation’s Health Emergencies Programme and leading the team responsible for the international containment and treatment of COVID-19) gave the Winter College Lecture from WHO’s headquarters in Geneva: “COVID-19:
EDUCATION COMMITTEE
Dr Niamh Hayes, Chair of the Education Committee
