Creation and implementation of an emergency medicine education and training program in Turkey: an effective educational intervention to address the practitioner gap

BACKGROUND: The specialty of Emergency Medicine has enjoyed recognition for nearly 20 years in Turkey. However, the majority of underserved and rural Turkish emergency departments are staffed by general practitioners who lack formal training in the specialty and have few opportunities to increase emergency medicine-specific knowledge and skills. METHODS: To address this “practitioner gap,” the authors developed a four-phase comprehensive emergency medicine education and training program for general practitioners practicing in government hospitals in Turkey. RESULTS: From April 2006 until June 2009, 42 courses were taught by 62 trainers across seven regions in Turkey. A total of 2,262 physicians were trained. The mean course pre-test score for all regions was 42.3 (95% CI 39.8 to 44.7). The mean course post-test score was 70.1 (95% CI 67.2 to 72.9). The difference between the mean scores was 27.8 (95% CI 25.3 to 30.4, P <0.0001), reflecting an improvement of 65.7%. CONCLUSIONS: A partnership between an academic emergency medicine department and an emergency medicine society to implement country-wide training of physicians practicing in public emergency departments can serve as a successful model for capacity-building global emergency medicine endeavors.