The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) invites you to participate in a new edition of EMT Ignite: “Surgical Care during Hurricane Melissa: Experience from EMT Type 2 Deployments”, to be held on Wednesday, January 21, 2026, at 11:00 a.m. EST/WDC.
During this session, experts from the Spanish Cooperation’s START Team (AECID) and Samaritan’s Purse Emergency Medical Teams will share their operational experience providing surgical care in the field during the response to Hurricane Melissa.
The webinar will explore how surgical services were organized and delivered during their deployments, key challenges encountered, and lessons learned for strengthening EMT Type 2 readiness and future emergency responses.
Key Discussion Topics
- Overview of the deployment
- Surgical readiness of the team
- How surgery was provided
- Managing high surgical volume
- Coordination with the national health system
- Key lessons for future EMT Type 2 surgical response
Panelists
Kenneth Elliott Tenpenny
Samaritan’s Purse Emergency Medical Teams
José Francisco Sigüenza
EMT START – Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID)
Languages
The event will feature simultaneous interpretation in English and Spanish.