EVD Education Events: Running a Hands-On Neurosurgery Workshop

A hands-on EVD workshop works when the neurosurgery department owns the clinical teaching and the distributor supplies equipment, product expertise and logistics. Build it around skills stations covering placement, system setup, leveling, troubleshooting and handoff, repeat it for different shifts and roles, keep it educational within hospital policy, and follow up with material people can use.

What makes an EVD workshop worth attending?

Neurosurgery residents, neuro-ICU nurses and advanced practice providers are busy, and they will only give time to an event that improves how they work. The best EVD workshops share a few traits. They are practical, with more time handling equipment than watching slides. They follow the patient, from the decision to place a drain through placement, management and removal. They are taught by people the audience respects, usually the department's own surgeons and nurse educators. And they are specific to the hospital's protocols, not generic.

For a distributor, a workshop is not a sales presentation. It is a chance to show that the company understands the clinical work and can support it. Departments remember suppliers who help them teach well. A workshop also gives the distributor something no meeting can: direct observation of where participants hesitate, which steps confuse them and which questions recur. That insight improves every later in-service.

Who should attend and who should teach?

EVD care involves several roles, and a workshop can serve them together or separately.

• Residents and fellows: placement technique, landmarks, kit familiarity, connection to the drainage system.
• Advanced practice providers: placement where they perform it, and management.
• Neuro-ICU nurses: system setup, leveling, drainage orders, emptying and bag changes, clamping, transport, troubleshooting.
• Emergency and OR nurses: setup and connection, clamping during transport and positioning.

Clinical faculty should come from the hospital: an attending neurosurgeon or senior resident for placement, and a neuro-ICU nurse educator for management. The distributor's role is to explain the product accurately: what is in the kit, how components connect, and what the instructions for use say. Mixing these roles, with the rep teaching clinical technique, weakens the event and oversteps the rep's role.

How should the skills stations be set up?

Stations let small groups rotate through focused, hands-on practice. A typical layout:

Placement practice usually uses skull models or simulators that the department or its simulation center already owns. Drainage management stations need complete systems mounted on poles at the height of a bed or mannequin.

Writing scenarios that reflect the unit

Troubleshooting scenarios are the most valuable part of most workshops, and they work best when they come from the unit's own experience. Ask the nurse educator which situations generate the most calls and questions: a drain that stops draining after a scan, a patient who sits up unexpectedly, a bag that fills faster than expected, a disconnection during transfer. Write each as a short case with a setup already arranged on the pole, so participants have to find and fix the problem. Afterwards, the educator links each case to the unit's protocol, and the distributor confirms what the instructions for use say about the steps involved.

What equipment and materials are needed?

Plan equipment well in advance, and agree with the department what the distributor supplies:

• complete drainage systems for each management station, such as the EVD-010 Series, with its 31 cm ventricular catheter, 30 cm measuring scale, 150 ml drip chamber and 800 ml drainage bag;
• the EVD-020 Series and the lumbar drainage catheter kit if the department manages lumbar drains;
• separate ventricular catheter kits to show radiopaque catheters with tantalum length marks from 5 to 15 cm and 24 drainage holes in four rows;
• examples of standard and orange antibiotic-impregnated catheters side by side;
• IV poles, a bed or mannequin, leveling tools the unit uses, and water to simulate drainage;
• printed instructions for use, component diagrams and the unit's own protocol;
• a short feedback form.

Label all workshop equipment clearly as training material, not for patient use, and collect it at the end so it cannot reach clinical stock.

How should the event be scheduled and run?

One large event rarely reaches everyone who needs it. Residents rotate, nurses work shifts, and emergencies interrupt. A more effective plan offers several shorter sessions: one at a resident teaching slot, others at nursing shift changes, and at least one at a time that suits night staff. Coordinate with the residency program's education calendar, especially at the start of the academic year when new residents arrive.

Keep each session tight. A short opening, rotation through stations in small groups, and a brief closing discussion fit within a typical teaching block. Start on time and finish on time; clinical staff will come back if they trust the schedule.

A sample session outline

For a single teaching block, a simple outline keeps everyone on track:

• welcome and objectives, including the unit's protocol and what is new;
• rotation through three or four stations in small groups;
• one troubleshooting scenario run with the whole group;
• questions, feedback forms and where to find the quick-reference material.

Adjust the stations to the audience: residents spend longer on placement and the kit, nurses on setup, management and scenarios.

How do you keep the event educational?

Hospitals have policies on industry participation in education, and a distributor should know them before proposing a workshop. Respect them fully: follow rules on meals, materials and attendance, avoid promotional content in teaching sessions, and make sure clinical content comes from the faculty. Product information should be accurate and drawn from the instructions for use. DESU antibiotic-impregnated catheters, for example, should be described as designed to release the agent in a controlled way over 28 days, not as a promise about complications.

An event that feels like a sales pitch disguised as education damages the relationship. An event that genuinely helps people practice earns invitations to the next one.

What should happen after the workshop?

Follow-up turns a good event into lasting value. Send attendees the quick-reference material, component diagrams and contact details for questions. Share the feedback summary with the department and the nurse educator, including suggestions for the next session. If participants raised questions the team could not answer, get written answers from the manufacturer and circulate them.

If the department's interest in the system grows from the workshop, the next step is a structured product evaluation with the hospital's value analysis process, not an informal switch. The workshop builds familiarity; the evaluation builds evidence.

Talk to a DESU product specialist

If you are planning an EVD workshop with a neurosurgery department, DESU's product specialists can help you plan stations, supply training systems and documentation, and support the event in your market. Write to sales@desu.tr or use the contact page.