Development of Emergency Services in Costa Rica
A Collaborative Project in International Health
- David Doezema, MD;
- David P. Sklar, MD;
- Paul B. Roth, MD;
- Michael P. Rodolico, MPH;
- George Key, MD, MPHTM
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
Excerpt
Emergency medicine programs, which have developed in the United States since the 1970s, have opportunities to share their content and growth process with the developing world where technological change has encouraged an interest in emergency medicine.1 Costa Rica has intensive care units capable of sustaining critically ill and injured patients but lacks an adequate emergency medical services (EMS) system to resuscitate and stabilize such patients before entry into intensive care units. From July 1989 to July 1990, the Division of Emergency Medicine at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque, collaborated with the Costa Rican government and Project Hope (The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc) to provide educational and technical assistance in developing an EMS system. Our experience highlights some of the benefits and pitfalls of such a collaboration.
Description of Costa Rican Health Care System Situated between Nicaragua to the north and Panama to the south, Costa
Footnotes
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Reprint requests to Division of Emergency Medicine, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, 620 Camino de Salud NE, Albuquerque, NM 87131 (Dr Doezema).
