Professionals Allied to Medicine (PAM) and Prevention newsletter – Volume 19 Winter edition

Table of Content

  • EBA Congress Nantes 2023 reports and experiences
    • There was something interesting for everyone
    • Plenary session Patient and Family Centered Care
    • First Congress Experience
    • Workshop hands-on treating wounds and scars from a multidisciplinary perspective
    • Prevention committee meeting during congress
    • PAM committee meeting during conference: new Staff Exchange Program
    • Prize winners
  • Webinar Wound Healing with a Multidisciplinary approach November 30th
  • New members PAM  and Prevention committee
  • Building a network of social workers in burn care
  • Upcoming Nordic Burn event

 

It was a pleasantly busy autumn for the EBA and EBA’s PAM and Prevention committees. We had a lovely congress in Nantes with multiple interesting multidisciplinary plenary sessions and great contributions from you all! We even had our first PAM workshop! Recently in November we had a webinar on Wound healing with over 100 participants. We want to thank you all for your continued interest, discussions en support. We prepared a new newsletter with reports from the congress, an introduction of our new committee members, a report of our webinar and some exciting planned events. Thank you all for a great year. We wish you and your family peace, precious moments with friends and family as the year’s end is approaching and all the best in the year to come.

Jill Meirte chair-person EBA Professionals Allied to Medicine (PAM) committee

EBA Congress Nantes 2023 reports and experiences

There was something interesting for everyone

With EBA program committee they prepared a great scientific program with something in it for everyone. It was great that a PAM person Peter Moortgat, a physical therapist both clinician and researcher from Belgium, gave the Rudy Hermans lecture. Besides our committee meetings, there were some great topics being discussed in the plenary sessions like Burn Care at a Global level, Burn Out in the Burn Team, a session on Resilience, Ethical Dilemma’s in Burn Care, Interprofessional Communication and the session on Patient and Family Centered Care, which the PAM group prepared. Besides that there were interactive hand-on workshops and meet the experts opportunities, so we do think every professional working in burn care had the chance to interact, learn and share ideas and experiences.

Plenary session Patient and Family Centered Care

With our EBA Professionals Allied to Medicine (PAM) committee we held a session on PATIENT AND FAMILY CENTERED CARE we talked about the created guideline/recommendations which you can find on our website https://lnkd.in/eu-tfG6h  and made sure our patients were heard with 2 patient videos. Subsequently we had 3 great speakers:

  • Jonathan Bayuo PhD, RN, MACN, Clinical Fellow (Burn Care)shared Patient-and Family-Centred Care Transition Interventions for Burn Survivors and their Families also explaining the tentative framework.
  • Christine Rosch shared the implementation of a multi-disciplinary, family-focused communication pathway for burns patients in Zurich.
  • Lina Sophie Toft Lernevall zoomed in on support needs of parents of children with burns with eye opening quotes from family experience in hospital and at home, pointing out 6 needs for support:

❤️being treated a whole family
🧡processing post-burn emotions 😨😮‍💨
💛being met with trust 🤝
💚personal needs 🚿
💙acquiring skills
💜being informed ℹ️

First Congress Experience

Fueled by excitement and a touch of anxiety, attending congress this year was an absolute delight not only for being my first congress but also for the amazing opportunities provided. Being hosted by the European Burn Association (EBA) rather than a singular home country organisation enabled a wealth of diversity to share innovation and practice which was reflected in the discussions in the workshops and following presentations. Although a busy few days, it was beneficial to not only my own practice but for my colleagues whom I will take knowledge back to and ultimately our patients. The highlights of congress for me were being able to participate in conversations around ethical dilemmas and decisions; exploring the importance of family and patient centered care (especially being able to take back ideas on how we can improve) and share my own knowledge and skills in our PAM workshop ‘Hands on treating wounds and scars from a multidisciplinary perspective’.

Lottie Armitage, member of PAM committee

Workshop hands-on treating wounds and scars from a multidisciplinary perspective

After four fantastic and inspiring days during the EBA Congress in Nantes in September, we in the PAM committee want to share a few words about our hands-on workhops on wounds and scar management. It was the first time we arranged something like this.., and we have to say…. it was a great success! More than 40 people, from at least 20 different nations, had the opportunity to exchange knowledge, share experiences and work together with professionals from across the world. It was wonderful to observe how the participants and organizers worked together, and shared different challenges, great skills, and experiences,  all to the best for our patients. Of course when people from across the world come together like this, there will be different issues due to country-related financial situations. This led to fruitful discussions and great creativity. We will humbly claim that all of us could take something with us, both academically and clinically from this workshop. Thanks for all the positive feedback after these two sessions. And the PAM committee is ready, motivated and full of ideas for the next Congress in Berlin 2025!

Sigrid Brokke & Stefania Simone, members of EBA PAM committee

Prevention committee meeting during conference

The Prevention committee held a lunchtime meeting on the 8th September to welcome and inform all attendees about EBA prevention.  The Chair (Mamta Shah) welcomed the attendees and the speakers Daniela Oumard (standing in for Karl Bodenschatz, Germany), Laetitia Goffinet (France) with her colleagues from Société Francophone de Brûlures (SFB) and Koen Martens (Belgium).

Dr. Daniela presented their fantastic work on creating awareness and educating the educated where they engaged their local government and used street light posters for prevention messages, engaging organisations of child wellbeing and engaging the theme of seeing things through the eyes of the child and creating the giant kitchen exhibition to highlight the common hazards. They had shipped over the giant kitchen to Nantes and it formed one of the exhibits at the conference. Daniela also brought over the virtual reality program for attendees to experience. They had used this at Nurenberg airport for passengers to play with and at the same time learn about burn prevention. All in all that was an absolutely fascinating presentation of such great measures.

This was followed by a joint presentation from Dr Goffinet and her colleagues from the SFB to highlight the role of associations to support survivors of burns and preventing ongoing psychological distress which was a great insight to the great work done by SFB and another angle to prevention.

Our final speaker was Koen Martens who has been engaged in prevention work for decades and has developed a good collaboration with the European Fire safety alliance.  He highlighted the impact this collaboration has by giving Estonia as an example where the program of fire safety has reduced burn injuries. He also informed us of the European Smoke alarm day and EU fire safety week which seem to have been embedded in the EU calendar and worth working together with locally. Koen highlighted the importance of strategic planning and evaluating the impact of every prevention program

To wrap up the short program, Mamta encouraged everyone to collect their service epidemiology data and engage in completing the EBA prevention survey (now closed). The data will help design the strategy for EBA awareness programs that will help each individual service promote prevention and together we can reduce burn injuries.

Mamta Shah chair-person of EBA’s prevention committee

PAM committee meeting during conference: new Staff Exchange Program

We shared with the audience what we have been doing with our PAM group. As you all know we arrange newsletters, prepared for the conference and we are working on guidelines. With great proud we also shared our Staff Exchange Program that was endorsed by the executive board of EBA with which we hopes to facilitate and promote a Staff Exchange between burn centres. More info on this can be found on the EBA PAM website https://www.euroburn.org/pam-committee/ and we value your input on this regard so if you fancy giving feedback you can do so here: https://forms.gle/BPy6jiyF57A8KxQY7

Prize winners

We got to award a few prizes during the conference and we want to congratulate them again for their excellent contributions. The winners will receive free registration for the next EBA conference and the possibility to publish their work for free in the European Burns Journal

  • BEST POSTER : Astrid Bjorke Jenssen: Fibrin spray Delivery of Mesenchymal Stem Cells: An in vitro study to assess feasibility in burn wound treatment
  • BEST YOUNG INVESTIGATOR presentation: Agata Skunka: Predicting mortality in severe burns: comparison of four mortality prediction scores in the Croatian burn center
  • BEST VIDEO: Amira Allahham: Burn Injuries and the Brain
  • BEST PSYCHOSOCIAL presentation: Helma Hofland: Partners’ social support associated with depressive symptoms in burn survivors
  • BEST OT/PT presentation: David Schieffelers: The role of exercise in wound healing: results of a feasibility study in exercise training
  • BEST NURSING presentation: Nicole Lee: Introduction of a academic online UK regional Advanced Burns Module
  • BEST PREVENTION presentation: Sangha Mahaveer: Assessing the effect of the cost-of living crisis on hot water bottle related burns in the United Kingdom

Webinar Wound Healing with a Multidisciplinary approach November 30th

Following colleagues shared their expertise

📌 Niall Martin talked about Epithelialisation of the Burn Wound: What you need to know
📌 Dominique Navet shared challenges in low income countries
📌 Lars-Peter Kamolz was the sponsored speaker by Kerecis and talked about acellular skin fish
📌 Sigrid Brokke & John Henrik Olsen & Cathrine Sivertsen gave different perspectives on Pediatric contact burn injuries and wound healing
📌Andy Williams talked about electric wounds

New members PAM committee

It is our pleasure to introduce our new committee members. We also want to give special thanks for all their efforts and contributions so a big shout out to Christelle Jung and Anna Schildt who left the PAM committee. They will be truly missed but we are sure we can keep in touch and touch in to get your valuable expertise on burn care.

I’m a social worker (-in-charge) from Finland with a master’s degree in social sciences. I have been working at HUS Helsinki University Hospital since 2011 and in the national burn centre at HUS Jorvi hospital since 2016. In addition to working in the burn centre, I also work on other wards and as a team leader for our group of social workers.

Klaudia Kokkola PAM committee

I’m interested in the psychosocial and societal aspects of burns. As a member of the PAM committee, I would like to contribute to sharing my knowledge of these topics for us as a burn care community to put more emphasis on understanding the social aspects of burns.  As burn patients often have severe social challenges, it is necessary that all the professionals in burn care understand the importance to concentrate on topics that are central to social work.

Gregoire Bondu, France

Hello everyone, I’ve been a French nurse since 2017, I worked in oncology and palliative care before moving towards burn care. I have been working in the burns intensive care unit for 4 years now at Hôpital Saint Louis in Paris, France. I have been able to devote myself to this speciality with passion and obtained an inter-university diploma in burn care in 2022. Optimal care for burn patients requires a holistic approach and expertise, so communication between the various professionals and the development of a team project are my priorities to ensure that our patients receive the best possible care in the best possible conditions. I hope to be able to contribute to the PAM committee to promote the values of the EBA and the development of burn care.

Heidi Gottwald Prevention committee

Welcome to Heidi Gottwald who is the co-founder of Paulinchen – Initiative for Young Burn Survivors. She comes with a wealth of experience from 30 years of working for the charity Paulinchen in Germany on a voluntary basis. She retires from her role as Chairwoman and leading different projects for children with burn injuries and burn prevention at the end of 2023. In 2010 her idea of an annual “Young Burn Survivors Day” (December 7th) was successfully established across Germany. .Her vision is to expand the scope and establish a global “World Burn Awareness Day” on which everyone works together on burn prevention. She will be a great asset to help us with our burn prevention strategy.

Building a network of social workers in burn care

Are you a social worker in burn care and interested in networking with other social workers in the field of burns?Please contact Klaudia Kokkola (social worker in Helsinki burn centre, Finland) by email klaudia.kokkola@hus.fi.Let’s connect and start a new network for us social workers in burn care!

Upcoming Nordic Burn event

We at the Norwegian Burn Center are happy to announce that the next years Nordic Burn Meeting will be arranged in Bergen, Norway, April 25.-26., at Clarion Hotel, Bryggen.  Our aim is to create an inspiring meeting both academically and socially. And it will be a great opportunity to meet, connect and share knowledge. There will be a variety of topics with an interdisciplinary focus. The last day will be dedicated to research. The meeting language will be English.

We will of course also gather socially in the evening, and we have chosen to keep it somehow informal in a more relaxed setting.  Also, the meeting itself will be slightly informal. We aim to keep costs down, and hope this will contribute positively for the meeting.  We really look forward to April… Springtime and Nordic Burn meeting in Bergen – can we wish for more?

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact us: brannskade@gmail.com

References to pictures
‘Thank you’ by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash 
Staff exchange by Smashing Stocks from Noun Project (CC BY 3.0)