PRACTICAL PROBLEMSSPECIALTY FOCUS
In the spotlight…
pre-hospital medicine
For Dr Matt O’Meara, an ST3 in anaesthetics and intensive care in
Nottingham, pre-hospital medicine has given him the most exhilarating
experiences of his career to date. Could it reward you in the same way?
S
itting on the edge safe and avoid becoming a consisting of local volunteer have rules and regulations in
of a motorway with casualty yourself. This was doctors organised under place that dictate that there
the traffic speeding hammered home during that the umbrella organisation must be a medical presence
past, the rain drenching you night as we attended a variety BASICS. They respond at contests. The principle
and the only source of light of potentially dangerous in their own time and are role of the doctor depends
the oncoming headlights, situations, including a funded by charities. Others on the sport, but includes
is not everyone’s idea of motorway accident, a have organised rotas and looking after the competitors
emergency medicine. Such (eg, boxing), or responding
was my introduction as a to significant trauma (eg,
final-year medical student: motorsport medicine).
attached to a pre-hospital
doctor responding to
Many sports governing bodies
Any event attracting large
numbers of spectators will
999 calls on behalf of the
ambulance service.
have rules and regulations in place
have its fair share of crowd
work. Event medicine is
The doctor I shadowed
for the evening adeptly
that dictate that there must be a
not limited to sports.
Large music festivals
juggled the diagnosis and
treatment of acute injury
medical presence at contests
also require crowd
cover. In attending
and illness, alongside the one such festival
logistics of working without I was called to
immediate backup – not suture the head
to mention the weather! police firearms incident and deploy multi-professional of an intoxicated
My first lesson came when a house fire. Perhaps the teams to the scene of illness rock star! His band
I was asked to hand him most unusual safety issue and accidents. Typically, mates sung to him
an oxygen mask. Reaching involved a woman who had these schemes consist of to calm him down
into the bag in the cold and collapsed in her kitchen and senior doctors (registrars or whilst I infiltrated the
the dark was difficult, but was being guarded by a consultants) who are drawn local anaesthetic.
I proudly passed him the vicious-looking pitbull terrier. from relevant specialties,
equipment only to discover such as anaesthetics,
Getting in
it was a paediatric mask, no
How to work in pre-
emergency medicine, ICU
good for the adult patient in hospital medicine and general practice. Getting involved in pre-
front of us. The lesson was Another area of PHC hospital care often begins
clear – know your equipment. There are many dimensions is event medicine. In the at medical school. Several
The most important to the practice of pre-hospital wake of certain high-profile UK medical schools have
aspect of working in such emergency care in the UK. national disasters, many specialist societies that
A
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environments is to keep Several schemes exist, sports governing bodies focus on PHC, trauma, or
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12 NEW DOCTOR | VOLUME 3 - ISSUE 1 | 2010 www.mps.org.uk
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