One Million Lives - A Laerdal Podcast

Join us as Dr. Zoran Bahtijarević, Chief Medical Officer for the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), tells us about a remarkable effort that brought CPR training to 200,000 sports fans during UEFA Euro 2024. Inspired by high-profile cardiac cases like the on-field cardiac arrest experienced by Manchester United’s famed Christian Eriksen, UEFA partnered with the European Resuscitation Council (ERC). Together they provided hands-on and online digital life-saving training to every fan they could reach. From “fan zone” CPR booths to web-based courses featuring European football stars, this campaign set a new standard for public health education in sports. 

An International Women’s Day Special—Join us as we speak with Trude Thommessen, an Academic Development Midwife and Clinical supervisor at Stavanger University Hospital, about her incredible work training midwives in Afghanistan. She shares insights into the critical shortage of midwives there, the challenges of education and training in a conservative society, and how simulation-based learning has played a crucial role in improving maternal care. We also discuss the “Three Delays” concept—why Afghan women struggle to access timely medical care—and how community midwives are not only saving lives but also becoming empowered role models in their villages. 

Every second counts in a stroke emergency. Are we doing enough to train healthcare teams for rapid response? Dr. Ivette Motola takes us inside the Advanced Stroke Life Support (ASLS®) Blended Learning Course, a transformative program teaching professionals how to detect strokes fast and act decisively. From advanced treatments to the power of simulation, she shares how education is saving lives—and what’s next in stroke care. 

In this episode, Dr. David Fredman, an expert in resuscitation systems, shares the remarkable impact of Sweden’s Heartrunner Program—a life-saving network that alerts CPR-trained volunteers via a smartphone app when someone nearby suffers cardiac arrest. With public AED use increasing survival rates to 70%, could this be the future of emergency response worldwide?  Joining him is Anna, a volunteer first responder, who has experienced firsthand the urgency of these calls. Did she make it in time? Tune in to hear her story! 

Join our conversation with two, esteemed educators from the UK’s London Ambulance Service, Stephen Davison and Tom Cutting. Davison serves as a Paramedic and Blended Digital Learning Lead and Cutting as a Digital Coordinator and, together, they share a behind the scenes look at training and education within one of the world’s largest pre-hospital care providers. Dive into the unique challenges that go with serving London’s diverse and densely populated landscape—including specialized training with the use of bicycles and motorcycles for patient care. Listen in to how they blend immersive digital tools, simulation-based learning, and peer-to-peer education to train new recruits and experienced staff alike. They also share insights into their award-winning apprenticeship program and groundbreaking "Ten-Second Triage" system, which streamlines major incident responses. 

Join us as Dr. Pierre Barker, recognized expert in healthcare quality, provides vital insights into the current landscape of patient safety as seen through his own personal narrative. In 1999, The US Institute of Medicine report “To Err is Human” revealed sobering data on the loss of life in the US due to medical error. This ignited a call for systematic change and prioritization of patient safety throughout US healthcare and in other countries. But where do we stand today?Dr. Pierre Barker answers that question for us. He is Chief Scientific Officer at the U.S. Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Offering a global perspective, he attended medical school in South Africa and has practiced pediatrics for more than 30 years in South Africa, the UK, and the US. He has worked extensively with the WHO to improve maternal and newborn outcomes. And he is Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Always optimistic but equally direct, Dr. Barker shares how despite advances, healthcare still faces patient safety challenges as evidenced by gaps between evidence-based care and actual practice.

Two renowned leaders in healthcare education joined us at this year’s International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare (IMSH). They are Dr. Janice Palaganas and Dr. David Rodgers. Listen as we hear their perspectives on two trending topics. Dr. Palaganas shared what it will take to further advance clinical simulation as teaching method. Dr. Rodgers spoke on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to augment a simulation program’s talent and resources.   Janice Palaganas, Ph.D., holds positions as a Professor of Interprofessional Studies at Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions (MGH IHP) and as an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School in the Department of Anesthesia. Her expertise—and her passion—lies in utilizing healthcare simulation for interprofessional education and optimizing simulation outcomes through diverse debriefing methods.  David Rodgers, Ph.D., holds positions at Indiana University (IU), as Director for its Interprofessional Simulation Center in Bloomington and as an assistant professor of clinical medicine in the IU School of Medicine. With over 25 years of experience in simulation, Dr. Rodgers has a wide range of knowledge in sim center operations and educational program development. As a prolific speaker and researcher, his experience in using AI is compelling.

Join us as Dr. Nalini Singhal shares highlights of her lifelong journey in revolutionizing neonatal care. A renowned neonatologist and co-developer of the Helping Babies Survive programs, Dr. Singhal's work has trained over a million healthcare professionals worldwide. In this episode, Dr. Singhal discusses topics relevant to all of us in simulation like peer-to-peer learning, clinical outcomes, continuous quality improvement. She also makes it clear; technology is no substitute for helping learners learn.  Dr. Nalini Singhal is a Professor of Pediatrics (neonatology) at the University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada. She is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Steering Committee for Helping Babies Survive, and a member of the Canadian Neonatal Network (CNN) Governing Board. Dr. Singhal has spent the last 25 years helping to develop and implement simple programs like Essential Newborn Care for the WHO/AAP to help save newborn lives. And her interest in advancing global neonatal outcomes is unparalleled. 

This year's annual European Resuscitation Council conference brought a new and potentially very impactful collaboration: The ERC and the UEFA (Union of European Football Associations). Football, or Soccer, is the world's largest sport, both in terms of active players and spectators. In this special episode from the ERC conference, you will hear more about this unique opportunity for lay provider CPR training to ride on the back of organized football to increase survival from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.  

Hear Dr. Barry Isenberg, President-elect of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH), share how the next stage in the growing importance of patient simulation will be about equating the benefits of simulation to bona fide clinical results.  Dr. Isenberg is Director of the Gordon Center for Simulation and Innovation in Medical Education at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. In this podcast he presents an overview of some key milestones in the history of patient simulation. He then shows how those milestones and much of what the patient simulation community has learned has left the simulation community poised to take patient simulation to a new level, not only focused on educating learners but on improving patient outcomes.