Pediatricians must also be able to acquire additional training in “clinical acute and emergency medicine”!
09.08.2023 14:32
In order to improve in-hospital emergency care for patients, specialists have been able to acquire additional training in “Clinical Acute and Emergency Medicine” for five years. However, pediatricians and pediatric surgeons are sometimes denied this additional qualification - corresponding applications to the responsible state medical associations have been rejected.
“Most of the further training content of the model further training regulations is formulated regardless of age,” says Prof. Sebastian Brenner (photo), representative of pediatricians on the executive board of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI), explaining the dilemma. “Specific times or minimum numbers are not defined!”
Accordingly, DIVI and the German Society for Interdisciplinary Emergency and Acute Medicine (DGINA) have a joint position paper Written for the practical implementation of the additional training “Clinical Acute and Emergency Medicine” in pediatric and adult medicine.
DIVI and DGINA, as representatives of emergency physicians in Germany, are calling on the state medical associations to explicitly improve emergency care for children through the regular acquisition of additional training by pediatricians. The joint position paper states: “In Germany, in addition to a central emergency room for adults, there is also a separate children's emergency department in numerous clinics, in which children and adolescents are given risk-adapted diagnostics and initial therapy after a systematic initial assessment. “That’s why obtaining additional training (ZWB) in “Clinical Acute and Emergency Medicine” is fundamentally also interesting and useful for pediatricians and adolescents, since pediatrics also benefits from the professionalization of emergency medicine.”
The increase in the number of complexly ill children requires improvements in the care situation
“It is vitally important to better train pediatricians for the acute and emergency care of children!” says Prof. Sebastian Brenner. The head of pediatric emergency medicine and interdisciplinary pediatric intensive care medicine at the Dresden University Children's Hospital speaks of a significant increase in complexly ill children. “We need to prepare even more comprehensively for these patients in the acute care situation. Of course, we pediatricians must not be excluded from additional training in acute and emergency medicine!”
Suggestion: rotations within the framework of cooperation agreements
The proposed solution from DIVI and DGINA also sounds feasible: in order to acquire further training, rotations should take place within the framework of cooperation agreements, depending on the original further training of colleagues, depending on the local structures (ZNA with/without children, purely pediatric ZNA). A corresponding concept adapted to the location must be presented. Accordingly, staffing plans adapted to the local ZNA structures would also have to be maintained. A uniform implementation at the state level would clearly regulate access to additional training in “clinical acute and emergency medicine” for all specialist areas.
Joint position paper on the practical implementation of additional training in “clinical acute and emergency medicine” in pediatric and adult medicine
German Society for Interdisciplinary Emergency and Acute Medicine (DGINA e. V.) and German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI e. V.)