News Feed

Dear Attendees,

Once again thank you for hosting me for the 4th time as a speaker in your conference. This only reflects the degree of trust that the ATLS family has in Roads for Life /The Talal Kassem Fund for Post Trauma Care.

The American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC), and Dr. Abi Saad had the vision when bringing the ATLS program to Lebanon through the American College of Surgeons(ACS) Lebanon Chapter in 2010.

Since then, Roads for Life has been, with the ATLS, PHTLS and ATCN programs in partnership with AUBMC and ACS, the driving force behind spreading the Post Trauma culture in Lebanon and by introducing the complete trauma cycle in all emergency rooms all over the country.

In 2014, Roads For Life launched a well-studied media campaign and caught the attention of the Lebanese Ministry of Health, and finally succeeded in creating a medical lobby exerting pressure on the Ministry, thus prompting it to issue a circular asking all governmental and private hospitals to provide their personnel with ATLS, PHTLS & ATCN (whichever applicable) training sessions through Roads for Life, the American College of Surgeons – Lebanon Chapter, and the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC). The Ministry of Health has even made these trainings crucial for the accreditation of the Lebanese hospitals Emergency Rooms.

Our objective, remains training as many doctors, nurses and paramedics as possible in the future.

We are working closely with the AUBMC to schedule no less than 6 courses yearly for the ATLS and ATCN, and hopefully more in the years to come. The Lebanese Red Cross is also working at a full capacity of 6 courses yearly. All this amounts to no less then 100 doctors, nurses, and paramedics trained on a yearly basis.

To date, Roads for Life has graduated 420 emergency doctors in the ATLS program and 180 nurses in the ATCN program; in addition to 410 paramedics from the Lebanese Red Cross who enrolled in the PHTLS program since 2011.

ER Doctors, registered Nurses and Paramedics who were certified in these training programs confirmed that the curriculum was crucial in their mission of saving lives at all times, not only in road traffic accidents but also in reducing death and any kind of trauma during terrorist attacks on all Lebanese territory.

In fact, I want to share with you a mail that has touched me greatly and that I have lately received from a medical doctor who has just graduated from the ATLS course with us, where she describes how this training has helped her in saving a trauma victim.

Testimonial
"I wanted to report to you an interesting case I just encountered in the ED of my hospital, and with which I dealt with lots of proficiency and accuracy thanks to the ATLS course I just took! It gave me the accurate and most efficient critical thinking that should be used facing the emergent trauma cases. In fact, the patient's case was the same of my ATLS test last weekend. It was a young man with inhalation injury and second degree deep thickness burns to both hands. I was called to the ED since I was on duty and I was really proud and happy at the end of the effectiveness and professionalism and rapidity of the management of this young patient. In less than one hour he was intubated, his airway secured, the IV lactate fluids administered according to the Parkland calculations, all examined, lab tests and chest X-ray obtained, sedated, stabilized, received his tetanus shot, his wounds' care and transferred to Geatawi Hospital: a specialized burning center since he had serious burns that necessitate a special medical expertise. And it was really rewardin to know later on while calling to check on the patient that he was doing very well."
 - Dr. Rita El Jawiche

I have been asked to share with you our latest achievements and expertise. Roads for Life has been lending a helping hand to and sharing its expertise that are much needed in the region.

Roads for Life has invited Syrian MD instructors to participate in the ATLS courses in order for them to maintain their status as” ATLS instructors “active. Four ATLS-certified instructors gave course modules on a rotating basis and Roads for Life has worked tirelessly to secure sponsorship for Syrian surgical residents and nurses to take trauma courses in Beirut. Upon an invitation from US ATCN Trainers Roads for Life team was as for a promulgating of ATCN in Cyprus. Roads for Life was also happy to sponsor a team of Lebanese nurses and paramedics to compete in the Aphrodite Emergency Medical Service Rally held in Cyprus last year. Guess what!!!! the Lebanese team came in third position competing for the first time with other international teams.

1- Completing the Tactical Combat Casualty Care TCCC training in Cyprus with the Lebanese Armed Forces and the Lebanese Red Cross last month. As you probably know the TCCC program is designed for armed trauma injuries and Roads for Life will be sponsoring 3 TCCC courses yearly to our brave Lebanese soldiers.

2- We coordinated with the Spanish Embassy in Beirut and provided 300 rescue kits to the soldiers of the Lebanese Armed Forces deployed in critical zones. Results have shown that these kits were urgently needed and we are so proud and happy to have been able to cover its cost.

3- Launching the "First Responder" course, in order to reach hundreds of officers and motorcyclist policemen at the Internal Security Forces in Lebanon. This would not have been possible without the tremendous efforts of Mr. Will Chapleau and his valuable manual “The First Responder” that has been translated recently into Arabic to make it available to everyone. 

4- Establishing a strategic partnership with the ESA (Higher School of Business) affiliated with the French Embassy trying to reach French educated young doctors and future trainers in this field.

All Roads for Life's achievements would not have been possible without the support of Lebanese Red Cross(LRC), AUBMC, Continuing Medical Education (CME) office TEAM of AUBMC, ACS Lebanon Chapter and above all the ATLS Committee on Trauma that supported us all the way. I salute as well Dr. Saud Al Turki, Middle East Chairman of ATLS and ATOM course and member of Roads for Life scientific committee; we greatly appreciate his cooperation and precious advice especially when welcoming and monitoring our 1- PHTLS “train the trainer” team in KSA back in 2012 2- ATCN "train the trainer" team in KSA in 2014.

As far as Roads for Life is concerned, we managed to develop our cooperation with international organizations such as G4 Alliance, Global NGO Alliance for Road Safety, and WHO.

Dear conferees,

All new developments in medical research will go in vain if we will not be able to reach the severely injured people during the golden period of trauma. One of the obstacles Roads for Life faced introducing the "training culture” was the "ego" in the medical circle: in fact, hospitals were not receptive to the idea that they need constant update in their knowledge and skills. Governments need to work hand in hand, to see that all recommendations materialize.

Dear Attendees,

It is thanks to our cooperation with:
1- The American College of Surgeons (ACS) Lebanon Chapter
2- The American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC)
3- The dedication of AUB CME Office ,
4- Dr. George Abi Saad, ATLS chairman in the Middle East and North Africa 3-as well as the president of ACS Lebanon Chapter Dr Mohamad Tarek Berjawi .

Our mission is to spread the Post Trauma Culture in Lebanon and abroad. We are working hard:
- To decrease the number of unnecessary deaths,
- To improve emergency trauma care systems,
- And above all to save innocent lives Roads for Life walked the road with ATLS hand in hand and since day 1 and the results were amazing.

Dear ATLS family,
we see long road of achievements ahead of us, and we are confident that with you by our side nothing is impossible.