RACQ LifeFlight Rescue recruits 21 new critical care doctors

Queensland’s RACQ LifeFlight Rescue has recruited 21 new critical care doctors to support its medical response operations across the Australian state.

The doctors will be deployed to RACQ LifeFlight Rescue helicopter and Air Ambulance jet bases in Queensland; some will be assigned to other aeromedical services. Most of their work will be performed on behalf of Queensland Health, under a ten-year service agreement.

LifeFlight says that the new recruits have ‘varied medical backgrounds’; some have traveled from overseas to join Queensland’s iconic aeromedical and rescue service, while others have been practising medicine in Australia and witnessed LifeFlight’s work firsthand’.

LifeFlight critical care doctors undergo rigorous training before deployment

The recruits have all completed LifeFlight’s aeromedical training program, which covers a range of important skills, including:

• Helicopter Underwater Escape Training – where doctors learn to escape in the event of a helicopter crash into water, which includes run-throughs of several scenarios including the removal of several types of restrains, as well as being blindfolded upside down
• Winching – both with a stretcher winch, where they escort a patient into an aircraft, and a double winch, where they are paired with a paramedic
• A range of specific pre-hospital and retrieval clinical skills – put into practice in high-pressure scenarios at the Queensland Combined Emergency Services Academy in Brisbane.

The scenarios undertaken at the academy were designed to mimic worst-case incidents such as a multi-vehicle crash, a house party with a drug overdose, and a boating disaster.