On ketamine in rural medicine

Recently, I met a new doctor to our rural ED who shook my hand and said he knew about my ketamine research and had found it helpful in managing acutely agitated patients in very remote Outback settings where he had previously worked.

Literally 20 min later he was called to manage an acutely agitated patient requiring transfer to tertiary mental health unit and he handled it smoothly . By the time the helicopter retrieval team had arrived the pt was adequately sedated on a ketamine infusion . No intubation required . And aeromedical transfer was uneventful on the infusion.

A decade after I published my first paper on ketamine sedation for aeromedical retrieval of acutely agitated patients its satisfying to see it commonly and so effectively applied to rural and remote medicine in Outback Australia