Crisis Resource Management in Emergency Medicine: an Italian medical students’ experience

Crisis Resource Management (CRM) is a training technique which follows the procedures used for improving aviation safety. CRM can be used in many contexts, including emergency medicine training. This technique includes three steps: presentation of the problem, high fidelity simulation and debriefing. In particular, CRM carefully analyzes behavioral factors related to the management of critical events. This way, trainees and instructors can discuss and improve management and leadership. In fact, key factors of CRM are communication, roles management and priority definition. In order to apply CRM in Emergency Medicine, the Italian Medical Students’ Secretariat organized the Emergency Medicine Simulation Seminary (EMSS). At the end of EMSS, we asked the 26 participants to give their feedback on the acceptance level of such medical training to assess the possibility of proposing CRM to other institutions as a method for emergency medicine training. Results show that Italian students have less simulation experience than international attendees. Also, CRM is a powerful training tool to rapidly improve knowledge on critical cases management; particularly if simulations are presented in high-fidelity settings by experienced instructors and with a proper training time to investigate, rehearse and fully understand the concepts.