Prehospital and Retrieval Medicine – THE PHARM dedicated to the memory of Dr John Hinds

At CareFlight another round of training many people is about to come up so it seemed like a good chance to ask Dr Sam Bendall for her first contribution. 

Sam is an Emergency Physician who is passionate about education, particularly all things simulation. She works half-time at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney in the Emergency Department where she helped develop and teaches the RPA Trauma Team Training program, teaches on the CIN nurses programs and helped develop the ED Essentials program. 

At CareFlight she is a retrieval doc (the other half-time) and the Deputy Director of Education. The CareFlight Education Team are always up to interesting things – from training the Australian Defence Force medical on how to look after all things ballistic, medical, surgical and paediatric, to running the Pre-Hospital Trauma Course both in Sydney and other locations (Malaysia, anyone?), to running Trauma Care Workshops all over the country. Oh…

Managing the airway in prehospital and retrieval medicine is a challenge and has inspired many a discussion in many a setting. And anyone working in the area would appreciate the additional challenge when there’s lots of blood getting in the way.  As a result everyone has tips and and tricks to try and manage things.

This is by no means the first time people have come up with an approach (or shared an approach) but in the spirit of wide-ranging discussion, here’s a suggestion from Dr Alan Garner recorded for posterity in video.

It runs for about 10 minutes and you’ll note that at the end there’s an update as the approach evolved.

All thoughts, feedback and experience very welcome.