The Critical Care Transport Medicine Conference (CCTMC) celebrated a 29-year run and a return to in-person events, receiving great feedback from attendees in all categories: for the conference location in Orange Beach, Alabama US, the dynamic delivery of a wide range of critical care transport topics, and management of Covid-19 safety measures, says Newman, Executive Director of the International Association of Flight & Critical Care Paramedics,

Also celebrated were the International Association of Flight & Critical Care Paramedics (IAFCCP) and Air & Surface Transport Nurses Association (ASTNA) on their 35 and 40 years of service, respectively. Memorializing these milestone anniversaries, members and conference attendees were treated to an outdoor party featuring a live band and flyover, followed by an IAFCCP vs. ASTNA game of glow-in-the-dark beach volleyball and a beach bonfire. Opening the event, Dr Josh Wall’s ‘Talking about Patient Death: The Elephant in the Room’ explored the effect of patient death on pre-hospital transport providers. This was followed by a number of pediatric-related content – a focus requested in attendee feedback – by Dr. Seth Brown’s presentation, ‘Pediatric RSI and Mechanical Ventilation Review, by Michael Frakes’ discussion on peri-intubation deterioration, and Kaitlyn Lucky-Smith’s popular talk on transport considerations of children with a single ventricle and other complex cardiac defects, to name a few.

Despite an unprecedented 15 months of Covid-inducing personal and workplace stressors, the conference vibe was upbeat, and attendees appeared revitalized in receiving in-person, real-time education and all the benefits of being at a beach resort. Sitting right on the Gulf of Mexico beaches, CCTMC offered fantastic education coupled with much needed healing and respite for all.

Clinical topics reach further than Covid

We take feedback from our attendees seriously and pride ourselves in offering relevant, quality education on a variety of critical care transport topics. One attendee commented: “All clinical topics were excellent, I always hope that there are peds/ neo components as there was this year, as many of us don’t see that patient population regularly. We’ve been so focused on Covid… it would be nice to see more trauma presentations or more case scenarios.” Absent from this year’s educational offering was the pre-conference Procedural Anatomy Lab annually presented by the Air Medical Physicians Association, and plans are already underway to offer the Lab at the 2022 conference. However, most conspicuously missing were our colleagues from outside of the US, who bring a diverse body of knowledge and experience to our conference. As one anonymous attendee put it, ‘would love to hear from our peers from other countries once COVID is contained’. 

For everyone who missed out on this year’s event, and for those who didn’t get enough, the CCTMC is returning to the Perdido Beach Resort in Orange Beach, Alabama, 11-13 April, 2022. More info is available at cctmc.net. Hope to see you there!