A unique lifesaving workshop trains IDF Field Hospital medics

For the first time in Israel’s history, 80 top surgeons throughout Israel and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) gathered to learn a new lifesaving medical technique to treat trauma patients. Trauma specialists from South Africa, the US and Sweden traveled to Israel to teach and demonstrate the ground-breaking procedure.

Our very own, Dr. Ofer Merin, participated in the workshop and shared, “This is a new technique which requires specialized training in a controlled setting to master,” explained Colonel (res.) Dr. Ofer Merin, Director of the Trauma Unit and Preparedness of Mass Casualty Events at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem and Commander of the IDF Field Hospital and General Staff’s Surgical Hospital Unit, to Breaking Israel News. “We are truly grateful to Dr. Grossman and LIBI USA for funding these life-saving workshops as simulated trauma scenarios with the use of REBOA are crucial to master this new technique.”

Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta, or REBOA, is used when a person is rapidly bleeding to death. It involves the placement of a flexible catheter balloon into the aorta to control haemorrhaging in traumatic injuries and then inflating the balloon, which stops the bleeding.