Day 3: Introduction to Laerdal

August 4th, 2014

Training Sessions
After a relaxing night on the boat and an amazing dinner, CBID crashed the comfortable hotel beds pretty hard.

 The morning started off with an amazing breakfast and a great introduction to the company by Tore Laerdal, himself. He discussed the three different sectors of the company and their functions as listed below.
1. Laerdal Medical (Commercial)
2. Laerdal Global Health (Non-profit)
3. Laerdal Foundation (includes University collaboration in Norway)

Tore further presented the stipulations of the millennium goals and the global strategies needed to achieve these goals to save 500,000 lives. More in depth details on the four training programs (Helping Babies Breathe, Essential Care for Every Baby, Essential Care for Small Babies, and Helping Mother's Survive) were also discussed. Tore introduced the new campaign, Helping 100,000 Babies Survive & Thrive,  under which these four programs will be implemented. The main take-away messages from his presentation were "training drives therapy" and "innovation is only achieved through impact".

Tore's talk was followed by a series of presentations by various members of Laerdal, Jhpiego, and other collaborators. The insights collected from these talks will help us approach our global trips in a manner that allows us to extract and absorb the most information possible. The talks are summarized below.

Dr. Monica Thallinger, Pediatrician and PhD
Working in Low Resource Settings 
Monica, a doctor part of Doctors without Borders and MSF, shared with us multiple field visit anecdotes and the limiting factors of healthcare access in low-income and resource areas. Her visits to Afganistan, India, Seirra Leone and more introduced many unmet needs such as basic hygiene and over prescription of pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Rashmi, Obstetrician/MPH
The India Experience
Similar to Monica, Rashmi discussed key issues in her field of work in birthing and maternal care in India. Rashmi has carefully studied family care plans and maternal care around the Indian atmosphere and has already started promoting Laerdal training products at her practice. Rashmi analyzed governmental schemes introduced in India and how Laerdal could be incorporated in these plans to make a difference in saving lives.

Following lunch, we had short breakout sessions where all the students were trained in using the fetal heart rate monitor and the neonatal ventilator. These two projects are the most recent areas of focus and development at Laerdal. We were able to understand the difficulty of ventilating premature babies and the improvements that could be made, to both, prevent asphyxia with continuous heart rate monitoring before birth, and proper management of airways and ventilation after birth.

The afternoon was then continued with multiple visits through the manufacturing plant of Laerdal Medical. We were able to tour through the molding, assembly, material selection, and the drawing/3D modeling departments. The assembly department in particular was very unique because were able to test a fully built SIM model. Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed inside the factory so we couldn't capture the exercises performed on the model.

On to the FUN!
Our evening plans included a trip to Utstein Abbey to visit a beautiful monastery, once occupied by Augustine monks. Here we enjoyed a great guided tour, an amazing music performance, and a delicious three-course dinner in the gorgeous dining hall of the monastery. Laerdal has been such a great host to CBID. We feel loved!