Dubai Women's College (DWC) organised its sixth Mass Casualty Incident (MCI) simulation last week where male and female Paramedics, Medical Imaging, Pharmacy and Applied Communications students took part.
They were joined by medics from local clinics, experts from Harvard Medical School, Welcare Hospital, nurses from Rashid Hospital's trauma centre and paramedic teams from local hotels.
Video: Emergency situation
The simulated emergency drill was the aftermath of a multiple car crash. About 20 staff from DWC played victims suffering from minor to critical injuries. The Paramedic students, who are trained to handle such situations, transported patients from the scene of the accident to a "hospital" in another area of the campus, where they used emergency medical techniques to treat the patients before sending them on to Medical Imaging students to carry out radiography procedures. The Pharmacy students were involved in the dispensing of medication, while the Applied Communications students practised their journalism skills.
The event was also part of Gulf Traffic Week 2010 in collaboration with the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA). RTA official Amal Yousuf conducted a lecture on defensive driving skills.
Mazoon Rashid Ali, a DWC Paramedics Year 1 student who played the role of incident commander, said: "I learned so much from the event and about the chaos that can happen when many people are injured in an incident."
Programme leader Ronald Blough also emphasised the importance of running such simulations to allow the students to apply the incident management systems that they have been taught.
The Higher Colleges of Technology's Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) Paramedic programme allows UAE national students to study in the UAE while enrolled in an American EMT paramedic programme.
