Emergency Medicine: Change in Academic Position Description - Andrew Petrosonaik

Change in Academic Position Description

Dr. Andrew Petrosoniak - Clinician-educator

Dr. Andrew Petrosoniak recently changed his academic job description from clinician-teacher to clinician-educator. He started his faculty appointment as an assistant professor, clinician-teacher, in 2015. The new job description as clinician-educator more accurately reflects Dr. Petrosoniak’s contributions to our division.

In the last year, he has focused his academic efforts towards in situ simulation as a method to improve patient safety for trauma care. As the PI for the TRUST (Trauma Resuscitation Using in situ Simulation Team training) study, together with Dr. Chris Hicks and a multidisciplinary research team, they conduct regular full-scale, multidisciplinary trauma simulations for >120 participants with the goal of identifying latent safety threats, optimizing workplace ergonomics and enhancing team performance. The study's protocol as been accepted for publication in BMJ Open while data analysis is currently underway. This study includes an innovative partnership with HumanEra (human factors experts) to provide a unique non-clinical perspective to trauma care workflow and human factors. 

Andrew's other academic interest is procedural skill acquisition. He is the developer and co-director (with Dr. Sara Gray) of the Critical Care Skills Day for EM residents which has run for the past two years. This training has been a tremendous success and a highlight for many residents. It offers an opportunity to enhance technical skills for several high-stakes procedures including cricothyroidotomy, thoracotomy, advanced airway skills and central line insertion. Additionally, Andrew is the PI (along with co-investigators Alia Dharamsi, Sara Gray, and Chris Hicks) for a study that serves to establish a formal checklist for bougie-assisted cricothyroidotomy performance and an international, multi-centre RCT to evaluate optimal educational strategies to teach this new cricothyroidotomy technique.

Andrew is an invited speaker at regional/national and international conferences on the topics of in situ simulation, procedural skill acquisition, and ED-based trauma care.