You can donate financially, as a fully tax-deductible (DRG-endorsed) one-off donation to the APLS International Fund here.
What will your money go towards? The main aim of APLS International is training. When our instructors travel to assist international programs, they do so out of their own pocket.
What the APLS International Fund helps with is paying for scholarships for international instructors.
A usual scholarship program involves a clinician from the likes of Timor-Leste, Sri Lanka or Myanmar travelling to Australia to attend an APLS provider course, a 3 day GIC or ESDC (instructor and education skills) course, and then shadowing local clinicians in their workplaces. These trips often last a month and APLS International covers all accommodation, travel, education costs and per diems. These scholarships cost around $7,500-$10,000.
On occasion APLS International also helps provide equipment and other training resources to these developing programs. Some sample training resource costs are: an APLS 6th Edition Manual ($100), a skeleton ($150), a Baby Umbi manikin ($1500), a junior training manikin ($3,800), and an ALSi simulator package ($11,000).
All of our funding is administered by the APLS International Committee - a governance group made up of our most experienced international instructors. All donations will be ringfenced to directly support international programs.
Find our more about our programs across the Asia-Pacific below. And thank you, we couldn't do it without your support.
Want to see an APLS International course in action? Here's a short documentary made during APLS Port Moresby in 2022.
The first APLS course in Papua New Guinea took place in 2018, with an instructor course in 2019 and another in 2022 - both with support from APLS educators. APLS PNG now run their own PLS one day courses independently, both in Port Moresby and in harder-to-reach rural locations.
APLS Papua New Guinea courses are financially supported by RACS.
APLS in Fiji has been running for over 15 years. They have their own local faculty, and run their own PLS one day courses.
Courses in Fiji are financially supported by the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, and administratively by APLS.
This year, to help support local faculty development, a team of Australian APLS instructors will be in Fiji to support three APLS courses in July, August and September.
The first APLS three day provider course ran in Timor-Leste in 2023, alongside two PLS courses. Local clinicians from the first set of Timorese candidates, who were identified as having instructor potential, may attend further instructor development training in Fiji before the next round of APLS courses in Timor-Leste.
Financially supported by RACS. APLS offer admin support, training and faculty members (funded by RACS).
A local GIC course supported by Australian faculty followed an APLS and PLS course in 2024, which produced 12 newly accredited APLS instructors.
APLS International will aim to support future 3 day courses and further faculty development in Timor-Leste.
It is another busy day in the emergency department of the National Referral Hospital in Honiara, Solomon Islands. A 2 year old child is brought in fitting and the mother says he has been fitting for about 10 minutes now.
The attending doctor recalls back to the status epilepticus algorithm from the recent Advanced Paediatric Life Support Course that she attended and returns to the child feeling more confident. The attending nurse, who also completed the course, reflects back to why prolonged fitting may cause harm to the brain and also the importance of letting parents know what is being done and keeping them informed. The child settles with treatment and the mother is less distressed as they await admission and transfer to the ward.
In Special Care Nursery there is difficulty in obtaining intravenous access in a newborn. The attending doctor (a recent APLS course graduate) inserts an umbilical vein catheter, a skill he had been taught during the course. Another child with difficult cannulation in theatre who was peri-arrest had an intraosseous insertion performed – another skill that the attending doctor had learnt during the APLS course – and the child was successfully resuscitated.
A 5 year old child is brought in with a head injury. The attending doctor recalls back the importance of a structured approach in the management of seriously injured children and attends to the child.
The APLS course has been run 3 times in Honiara. As you can see from these different experiences shared, it has had a real impact on clinical practice here. We are grateful and look forward to having many more courses run here.
Trina M
Head of Emergency Department, Honiara, Solomon Islands
The Flinders Medical Group in Adelaide have been supporting APLS training in the Solomon Islands for some time, alongside APLS International faculty members.
The clinical lead of APLS in the Solomon Islands is being provided a scholarship from the APLS International Fund to attend a Melbourne-based Education Skills Development Course. These opportunities help support local course directors to develop in-country faculty by bringing these training techniques back to the Solomons.
APLS in Sri Lanka is an established program, set up and part funded in conjunction with UNICEF.
APLS Sri Lanka have been running GIC, APLS and Instructor Development courses this year after a COVID-19 hiatus.
Sri Lankan faculty are regular visitors to Australia, and are also supporting the development of APLS in the Maldives.
The first APLS international course in this archipelago off the southern coast of Sri Lanka took place in 2013 supported by Australian and Sri Lankan APLS faculty. A GIC for local instructors followed a year later, and the first course with local faculty took place in 2015. The Maldives now has a thriving cohort of local instructors, course directors and coordinators.
The next APLS course in the Maldives will again be supported by Australian faculty following the Sri Lanka programs in October 2023. Sri Lankan APLS faculty have been instrumental supporters of the Maldives programs, underlying the importance of local support networks.
"The APLS course is really intense. We do all these things every day but we don’t always follow a structured approach. So with this APLS training it has instilled some structure, and I will take this back to my staff.
It is very challenging and it is very rewarding. I have learnt a lot. It is a really good course and I highly recommend it.
It’s been a long journey, I took about 17 hours to complete the online learning. On Tuesday during the face-to-face course testing I was the last one to leave the room, I left at 5:45pm and now I am only one of 2 people that have successfully completed all the components... and I am holding the fruit of my labour [an APLS certificate]. So yeah, you can do it, cheers!"
Andree Z
Paediatrician, Wewak, Papua New Guinea
An established program running almost independently. Courses run via the APLS / ALSG model recommenced in 2019, and international faculty returned to Vietnam for the first time this year since COVID.
This year in April, APLS International faculty supported GIC and APLS courses in Vietnam.
Here, you can see an example of the improvisation required on international courses - sandals being used in lieu of defib paddles during an advanced life support skills station.
APLS in Cambodia is now in the 'maintenance' phase, which means this program is locally self-sufficient for provider courses.
This year APLS Cambodia will be adopting the interactive APLS & PLS programs - moving away from lectures to an interactive, discussion and scenario-based training approach.
This move was inspired by one of Cambodia's clinical leads attending education skills training in Melbourne courtesy of an APLS International scholarship, support from the APLS education team and use of the same online learning package that APLS candidates in Australia take before a course.
