Prehospital Care

Leadership is not reserved for the most senior person in the room. Reflections from a year with Sydney HEMS explore responding to hostility, supporting colleagues after difficult jobs, listening to every voice and recognising the value of everyday kindness and humility.

A visit to Air Zermatt prompts Ashley Liebig to reflect on how teams learn from mistakes. Beyond the mountain rescues, she finds mutual respect, openness about near misses and questions about how healthcare educators can build a similar culture.

How prepared is your department for an attack involving a corrosive substance? This 2017 post discusses decontamination, eye injuries, multidisciplinary care and support for victims, emphasising local planning and specialist toxicology advice rather than using a blog to direct treatment.

Natalie May continues her reflections on a year with Sydney HEMS, focusing on paediatric retrieval, drowning and airway care. These personal clinical lessons explore equipment, communication and the compromises involved in delivering critical care outside the hospital.

What happens beyond initial survival after cardiac arrest? This 2017 review of Danish registry data explores associations between bystander CPR or defibrillation and longer-term outcomes, emphasising that the analysis concerns 30-day survivors and cannot establish causation on its own.

Preparing a critically ill patient for transfer brings challenges that can be less obvious at the bedside. In this third Sydney HEMS reflection, Natalie May explores sedation, ventilation, physiological preparation and contingency planning through lessons from interhospital retrievals.