The Police College has just introduced a new training package to equip officers with more advanced first aid skills and knowledge for attending to casualties in a tactical environment before the arrival of the emergency medical team.

Known as Police Oriented Tactical Emergency Medicine (POTEM) Course, the training package has been designed by the three Honorary Medical Advisers of the Police College, Dr Jimmy Chan Tak-shing, Chief of Service in the Accident and Emergency (A&E) Department of the Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital and Cluster Co-ordinator (A&E), New Territories (NT) East Cluster; Dr Y Y Chow, Cluster Chief of Service, Orthopedics & Traumatology of NT West Cluster of the Hong Kong Hospital Authority; and Prof. Robert Cocks, Hon. Professor of the Department of Surgery (A&E Medicine) of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Commissioner Lee Ming-kwai appointed the three experts in the fields of emergency, tactical and aviation medicine to be College Advisers after the establishment of the Police College in January this year.

According to Woman Senior Superintendent Chu Ming-po in charge of the College's Foundation Training Centre, the POTEM Course represents the College's further efforts to make police training more professional.

Explaining the primary objective of the POTEM Course, SSP Chu said, "In a tactical environment or when the scene of an incident is not easily accessible, the emergency medical team might not be able to arrive at the scene promptly. Under these circumstances, the duty of saving life will fall on the officers at the scene. POTEM will provide officers with the necessary skills and knowledge to discharge such duty.

"The POTEM Course will also make the officers more confident while delivering emergency life support, and place them in the forefront of our mission to serve with pride and care."

The POTEM Course, which is scenario-based and protocol-driven, caters for the operational needs of officers with different duties.

SSP Chu said POTEM provides three levels of training, namely, introductory, basic and advanced. The two-day introductory training has been designed for frontline officers such as officers of Emergency Units. The one-week basic training caters for the needs of officers of special operational units, while the eight-day advanced training further meets the needs of special operational units such as Special Duties Unit, Airport Security Unit, VIP Protection Unit, and Witness Protection Unit.

Besides being grateful to the three Honorary Medical Advisers for their assistance, SSP Chu also thanked Dr Chan for recruiting a large pool of doctors and nurses as volunteer course instructors and providing train-the-trainer training for them.

"I would also like to thank the doctors and nurses who sacrifice their leisure time in training our officers. Their contribution, as well as those of our Honorary Medical Advisers, will definitely help to save lives," said SSP Chu.

Roles of Police Medics

Dr Chan said the care provided by a Police Medic to a victim is different from the ordinary care in hospital and pre-hospital environments. A Police Medic needs to possess the essential elements of patient care in an operational environment.

The Introductory POTEM Course (I-POTEM) therefore equips frontline officers with the skills of treating the injuries they would come across during their daily work, such as stab wounds arising from gang fight, injuries arising from blasts or falling from height, and fractures of limbs, etc. The updated skill of cardio-pulmonary resuscitation is also provided.

The basic training (B-POTEM) also covers tactical emergency medicine, transport medicine and treatment of gunshot wounds and injuries arising from chemical or biological incidents.

Dr Chan said the advanced training (A-POTEM) would be tailor-made to cater for the operational needs of different special operational units. Unlike the introductory and basic training, the advanced training will be conducted outdoors in different mock operations.

As part of the POTEM Course, Dr Chan has spent about one year in compiling the Force's first medical manual for the Police College, which, he said, is a very useful reference for every officer.

Thirty officers comprising 27 from EUs and three from Marine Region were the first batch to have benefited from the I-POTEM Course. They attended the introductory training at the Police College on October 5 and 6, and were presented with attendance certificates by SSP Chu after passing an assessment of the skills they had learnt from both classroom and practical training, conducted at the Tactical Training Complex on the afternoon of the final day of their training.

SSP Chu with some of the officers who have successfully completed the introductory training of the POTEM Course