e-Learning Anaesthesia programme

The Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC) is a referral hospital for over 15 million people in Northern Tanzania. Dr Ansbert Sweetbert Ndebea is an anaesthesiologist at the centre, part of a small team in the anaesthesia department.

Training resources at the KCMC are limited. However, for the past three years, Sweetbert and his fellow residents at the KCMC have been using eIntegrity’s e-Learning Anaesthesia (e-LA) programme to support their training and professional development.

“As a trainee from a country with limited resources, we have really benefitted from having access to such a high-quality resource”, explains Sweetbert. “We use e-LA regularly as a reference tool to help prepare for difficult clinical cases, for teaching sessions and also for exam revision. Undoubtedly, this e-learning has helped us to improve our knowledge and provide better care to our patients.”

An award-winning training resource developed by the Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCOA) and Health Education England e-Learning for Healthcare, e-LA covers the core knowledge and skills needed for specialty training in anaesthesia, pain and critical care medicine. It is aimed at trainee doctors, nurses and other anaesthesia practitioners but the content is also used by qualified professionals. e-LA features more than 800 comprehensive learning sessions and an extensive e-library of journal articles from the British Journal of Anaesthesia (BJA) and BJA Education. There are also assessments which match the standard of the UK FRCA exams.

Phenomenal success across the world

Launched more than 10 years ago, e-LA has seen phenomenal success in the UK and internationally. In the UK alone, more than 500,000 learning sessions have been launched in the past 12 months.

“The high quality of the e-learning is obviously one of the key selling points”, explains Graham Blair, Associate Director of Education and Events, from the Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCOA).

The programme is mapped to the UK training curriculum – which is internationally renowned. As Graham explains, many countries model their training curriculums on the UK’s, so the content is easily transferable across countries and continents.

“Obviously, there are regional differences in terms of clinical practice”, says Graham. “However, customers can purchase selected modules that are relevant to their specific training requirements and interests.”

Future developments

Currently, e-LA is going through an extensive 18-month review – with a team of clinical authors and editors checking and updating each module, in turn, to ensure that the content reflects the latest clinical practice and any changes to the training curriculum.