BASIC
The Basic Assessment & Support in Intensive Care (BASIC) collaboration is an informal grouping of international Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine specialists with an interest in the development and dissemination of high quality, free course teaching material to teach clinicians intensive and acute care. It was founded in 2004 by members of the Department of Anaesthesia & Intensive Care at The Chinese University of Hong Kong and led by Profs. Charles Gomersall and Gavin Joynt. This material is produced primarily in the form of short courses focusing on different topics or groups of students/professionals working with severely ill patients. All courses are generic and standardized (teaching material is produced in sufficient detail to be to be teachable, in-situ, by trained local instructors). To date all courses follow the same format: 1-3 day courses consisting of a course manual for pre-course reading, pre-course test, short lectures focusing on application of knowledge gained from pre-course reading, skill stations and a post-course test. All course material is provided free of charge (in an electronic format) and there are no license fees for running courses. The courses are disseminated using a train the trainer model. Educational material for all courses is updated on a regular basis, at least annually.
In excess of 350 courses are taught per year and our courses have been taught in over 70 countries
Venues of BASIC Collaboration courses since 2004A summary of individual courses is given in the table below.
| Name | Target audience | Content |
|---|---|---|
| BASIC | Novice intensive care doctors | Introduction to intensive care with a focus on resuscitation and organ support, especially mechanical ventilation |
| BASIC for Nurses | Novice intensive care nurses | Introduction to intensive care with a focus on resuscitation and organ support, especially mechanical ventilation |
| Paediatric BASIC | Novices PICU doctors | Introduction to PICU with a focus on monitoring and organ support, especially mechanical ventilation |
| BASIC Patient Safety | Bedside clinicians (medical and nursing) | Patient Safety concepts with an emphasis on how clinicians can improve Patient Safety |
| Very BASIC | Medical students and junior doctors | Care of critically ill patients outside ICU |
| BASIC Low Resource (BASIC LR) | Doctors working in low resource settings | Care of critically ill patients in low resource settings. Developed at the request of and in collaboration with Medecins sans Frontieres, Paris. |
| BASIC LR for Nurses | Nurses working in low resource settings | Nursing care of critically ill patients in low resource settings. Developed at the request of and in collaboration with Medecins sans Frontieres, Paris. |
| BASIC Sciences | Intensive care trainees | Basic sciences underlying Intensive Care (course material in development) |
| Beyond BASIC Cardio-cerebral Resuscitation | Doctors involved in cardiac resuscitation | Advanced cardiac life support |
| Beyond BASIC Mechanical Ventilation | Intermediate-advanced Intensive Care trainees (or refresher for specialists) | Mechanical ventilation of critically ill patients |
| Beyond BASIC Intensive Care Nephrology | Intermediate-advanced Intensive Care trainees (or refresher for specialists) | Nephrology relevant to Intensive Care, including renal replacement therapy |
| Beyond BASIC Airway Management | Intermediate-advanced Intensive Care trainees (or refresher for specialists) | Airway management in the critically ill including use of advanced airway techniques |
| Beyond BASIC Cardiothoracic Intensive Care | Intermediate-advanced Intensive Care trainees (or refresher for specialists) | Management of immediate post operative and critically ill cardiothoracic patients |
| BASIC Transthoracic Echocardiography | Doctors and healthcare workers interested in learning basic Focused Cardiac Ultrasound. No prior experience required. |
Doctors and nurses interested in running our courses should click here
Publications related to BASIC Collaboration courses
- Douglas A, Holley A, Udy A, Lipman J, Gomersall CD, Joynt GM, Freebairn RC, Boots R. Can learning to sustain life be BASIC? Teaching for the initial management of the critically ill in Australia and New Zealand. Anaesthesia and Intensive Care, 2010; 38:1043-51
- P. C. Gruber, C. D. Gomersall, G. M. Joynt, F. M. Shields, M. C. Chu, J. L. Derrick, and for the Very BASIC development group. Teaching acute care: a course for undergraduates. Resuscitation 74:142-149, 2007.
- C. D. Gomersall, P. Lam, and G. M. Joynt. Electronic interactive learning to supplement acute care teaching. Medical Education 44:526, 2010.
- Joynt GM, Zimmerman J, Li TS, Gomersall CD. A systematic review of short courses for nonspecialist education in intensive care. Journal of Critical Care. 2011 Oct;26(5):533.e1-533.e10.
- Wong WT, Ling L, Gomersall CD. Making critical care education BASIC: A collaborative approach to training. ICU Management & Practice. 2017;17(4):216-9. https://iii.hm/fay