Anaesthesia and critical care in unusual and transport environments SIG

PRE HOSPITAL MEDICAL TEAMS

K Harrison
Care Flight, Sydney, NSW

The use and place of pre- hospital medical teams is often a controversial topic. When someone is injured or sick and calls an ambulance it is accepted that some form of care often needs to be given by someone before they arrive in hospital. The big questions are how much and by whom? Two different systems of care have evolved around the world over the past 30 years. In USA, UK and most of Australasia paramedics largely fulfil this role. In most of mainland Europe doctors fill this role. Both groups tend to view the others system with a combination of disbelief and amazement.

Most systems that use paramedics have a fall back for deployment of medical teams to be deployed for certain circumstances. These criteria vary widely across jurisdictions and are dependent on the type of system the paramedics function under, the skills the paramedics are allowed to use, the availability of medical teams and the local history and politics of the area.

There have been numerous published reports about these issues but almost all are coloured by local factors and few shed real light on this dilemma. In this talk an attempt will be made to outline what is known and what we should try to find out if we are ever going to answer this question.

Time of Presentation:
Saturday 13 May 2006 - 1530-1700