Theme and subtheme | Quotation |
---|---|
Theme 1: Individual attributes acquired during deployment | |
Agility in high-stress environments | “It’s the ability to adapt quickly, be agile, be in, …, high-stress environments, not be getting breaks, not sleeping well; dealing with very difficult things; dealing with things that sometimes are outside their job. … it’s more the personal attributes than the technical skills, often.” (P4) “I’ve learned to change my plans every half day, every day, … because, those situations, are so dynamic … so rapidly changing, and you learn, new things about the context of what that disaster, what that event has brought to you, that forces you to change your plan. You have to be, an agile thinker; flexible in mind, able to abandon assumptions.” (P13) |
Understanding local context and community needs | “The success of a deployment …, it’s linked to a mix of understanding of the organizational culture, and the context.” (P5) “those (delegates) that are more curious about other countries, other cultures/traditions/customs, those ones are more likely to be successful on missions.” (P2) “One thing (delegates) have to learn is working with local counterparts and making sure the local counterparts are stronger when they leave than when they got there.” (P1) |
Stress management | “having to make tough decisions, ethical decisions about rationalizing the antibiotics you have, or not even having supplies, or (being) without technology. These are things that can stress professional(s), and there are the things … that can stress people at a very personal level.” (P13) “I think able to work very long hours in difficult conditions … not the best of conditions, I think those personally resilience characteristics are important.” (P2) |
Theme 2: Team capacities developed during the deployment | |
Partnership and teamwork | “For the medical team, people come from varied backgrounds … somebody might be really current on their neonatal resuscitation skills, somebody else might be really good at starting IVs, somebody else might be able to put casts on and they can, actually, teach the local staff how to do it… It’s like finding out what everybody else is good at and pooling all their resources.” (P16) “Understanding that not everyone will have the same level of English or French in a team, and adapting to that …, working through translators, adapting to a different vocabulary, way of working with the local team.” (P14) “The ability to realize that the relationships that you have on the team are more important than any one issue … the ability to let go of things and move on, and the ability to work constructively with people, adapt to changing situations, sort of a loyalty to the team.” (P9) |
Collaboration and coordination | “I’ve gained through the emergency response unit … the ability to coordinate. Coordinate with the local population to make sure the assistance we’re providing is appropriate and timely. Coordinate with the local authorities, government officials, to make sure that the assistance we’re providing is appropriate and coordinated and … also coordinate with any humanitarian agencies and other.” (P7) |
Theme 3: Application to domestic context | |
“Canada’s not immune to mass disruptive events, … . And all those require some of the same attributes, in terms of dealing with the international side. Unfortunately, the international side is a great training setting, as well, a real training setting, for events that we may or may not see in Canada.” (P3) “… it’s much more, … intense and rich in some of the emergencies overseas, … when we’re able to apply them to very big and complex emergencies in Canada, it’s very evident that these are transferable skills.” (P11) “(With) First Nations, there are some very strong similarities, in terms of dealing with a different cultural setting.” (P7) “Coordinate with the local population to make sure the assistance we’re providing is appropriate and timely … . So, I think having this skill internationally, how to interact with local authorities understand their mandate, their resources available and respond to the gaps, this is something that I’ve also been able to use in Canada.” (P2) “… especially working in Canada, especially considering the size of our country, we move people around (during emergencies), people who have the capacity to quickly adapt, quickly understand the new environment, function within a team of people that they don’t know and that have different backgrounds.” (P8) |
Note: IV = intravenous line.