The boy's painting (Spain): Thanking health workers during COVID-19 pandemic.

Unlike most countries in the world, Spain has a unique and huge system of highly specialized out-of-hospital emergency service, led by the best trained family doctors, specialists in Emergency Medicine. While the ambulance went down the street at 20th with sirens and music to cheer on the people of city Ibiza, Balearic Islands, Spain, on April 7, 2020, a BOY approached unsurely, under the supportive and complicit eyes of the people from the balconies and without saying a word passed the ambulance health workers, his drawing through the window.

Evaluating the effectiveness of cardiac arrest resuscitation short course (CARS) for rural physicians of Asia: The Rural Emergency Care Training for Physicians (RECTIFY) project.

BACKGROUND: Physicians from resource-constrained rural areas being lone lifesavers pose a unique challenge in resuscitating emergencies like cardiac arrest. Rural Emergency Care Training for Physicians (RECTIFY) was devised as a short course training to equip them to deal with occasional emergencies using minimal gadgets. This study was conceived to assess the effectiveness of the RECTIFY-Cardiac Arrest Resuscitation Short course (CARS) module in improving current knowledge and practice of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) among interested rural physicians of Asia. METHODS: A three-tier observational study was conducted to assess current CPR knowledge with a pretested structured questionnaire and skills using a checklist, followed by a 3-h hands-on training and posttest evaluation using the same study instruments. Data were entered into Microsoft Excel and analyzed using SPSS 13.0. RESULTS: Out of 622 participants, most of the participants (603; 96.9%) were willing to provide CPR despite poor knowledge and skills. Pretest scores averaged 1.5 ± 0.99 and 0.1 ± 0.3 for CPR knowledge and skills, respectively. Posttest scores for CPR knowledge (10.5 ± 1.5) and skills (2.8 ± 1.6) improved significantly (both P = 0.001). Whereas a majority improved upon chest compression skills, appropriate use of sophisticated gadgets like automated external defibrillators (AED) was low (2.4%) despite training. CONCLUSION: The level of knowledge and skill among participants was poor despite the enthusiasm and positive intent. The impact of RECTIFY-CARS on knowledge and skills among participant physicians was significant and is recommended for implementation by health policymakers in resource-poor rural settings. However, essential gadgets like AED were not impactful which necessitates the use of simpler rural alternatives.