A/Prof. Andrew Pearce1
1SAAS MedSTAR, Adelaide, Australia
Abstract:
Every year in Australasia there are major bushfires, floods, cyclones and human related incidents that sadly cause loss of life/property and require major incident response from emergency services.
There are limited aeromedical services to respond to such events and many may not require specialist medical intervention however if services are deployed how are they utilised, coordinated, and communicated with? What training do these teams receive and is it relevant to the response required? There are courses available through universities, health services and aeromedical providers that provide the basics from an individual and service perspective however is this enough and are we actually prepared?
Looking at recent examples of incidents and cases from aeromedical services around Australasia is one way to help provide a framework for what we could teach, train and deploy. We have a unique opportunity and forum through ASA/FNA to present these cases/situations and discuss issues from a multidisciplinary perspective to hopefully help standardise a training framework and repository of cases to learn and teach from.
Biographies:
Associate Professor Andrew Pearce is a Pre Hospital and Retrieval Physician and Clinical Director with MedSTAR retrieval service as well as an Emergency Medicine and Trauma Consultant at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.
Andrew is an active RAAF Aeromedical specialist reservist and an AusMAT team leader with several overseas deployments.
Andrew has academic positions at James Cook University, an examiner for Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh in retrieval medicine and member of court of examiners Conjoint committee for Dip PHRM Australasia.