Schulich students aim to tackle rise in e-scooter injuries among youth
Schulich medical students turned a course project into a London, Ont. campaign after Children’s Hospital treated 58 e-scooter injuries from April to June, up from 22.
A team of second-year Schulich medical students built an e-scooter injury prevention project for youth in London, Ont. in an experiential learning course that ended in April. Half the group kept working through the summer, including Nikita Burman, Ethan Martin, Joseph Russell, Ojan Khosravifar and Eden Kemal. Paediatrics professors Dr. Sheena Belisle and Dr. Jennifer Kilgar supervised.
Belisle proposed the topic after seeing more e-scooter injuries in the emergency department. London Health Sciences Centre reported that Children’s Hospital treated 58 such injuries between April and June, against 22 in the same months a year earlier.
The students surveyed about 150 people, mostly in the emergency department. Only 39 per cent knew the minimum age to ride in Ontario is 16, and only 15 per cent knew riders under 18 must wear helmets.
They have produced a public education poster and hope it helps cut e-scooter injuries at Children’s Hospital’s emergency department by 10 per cent by October. Three of them presented the project in Hamburg in June.
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