ENLS in Africa By Bhiken Naik, MD
ENLS global outreach extended even further
this year with NCS hosting its first course
in Africa. Under the auspices of the South
African Society of Anaesthetist (SASA), an
ENLS course was successfully completed on
March 22, 2017, in Johannesburg, South
Africa. A special thank you goes out to Dr.
Anthony Beeton, Dr. Howard Radford and
Professor Chris Lundgren, course directors for
the annual SASA meeting, who effortlessly integrated the ENLS
course into the meeting. Dr. Romer Geocadin (past president of
NCS) and Dr. Bhiken Naik (University of Virginia) were the course
faculty, and there were 29 delegates that included anesthesiologists
(who provide the majority of critical care in South Africa)
and neurosurgeons. Furthermore, the scope of practice of the
participants included both academic and private practice. The
feedback from the delegates was uniformly positive and many
expressed an interest in hosting additional courses around South
Africa. Attendees were also complimentary of the structured,
modular, evidence-based approach that the ENLS course espouses.
The South African healthcare system has highly developed tertiary
medical centers predominately located in large metropolitan
areas and primary and secondary healthcare facilities in nonmetropolitan
and rural areas. Patients with serious neurological
diseases are usually managed in general critical care units with few
specialized neurocritical care units in the country. Furthermore,
there is no formal training that focuses primarily on critical care
neurological-based diseases, especially during the first hour of
disease presentation. Dissemination of the ENLS course in South
Africa is an important first step in providing healthcare workers
with the tools for standardized early neurological care, especially
in resource-limited centers.
Although the course was predominately attended by
anesthesiologist and neurosurgeons, the hope is that future ENLS
courses will be conducted around the country that target earlyresponders,
emergency room physicians, pharmacists and critical
care nurses.
ENLS has proven to be an invaluable tool to improve patient
care and outcomes during the critical first hours of a neurological
emergency. This course provides a significant step in improving
neurological care in South Africa and the rest of the African
continent.
10