This site is here because a bunch of us wanted to be part of the online discussion around prehospital and retrieval medicine. It has been started by a few people who came together working with CareFlight in Australia.

CareFlight has been in the prehospital and retrieval medicine space since 1986. In that time our medical and aviation teams have worked together across Australia, internationally and had the opportunity to help out in disaster settings.

The aim of this site is to share some thinking and learn from some great conversations. After all, it’s a collective pursuit.

Disclaimer

While it’s obvious people involved in this site work with CareFlight (amongst their other jobs) the site is a separate thing. Topics discussed here are general in nature. All topics should be interpreted by the clinician and placed in the particular context of their practice or the case they are dealing with. It is not to be taken as direct advice and, as always, requires critical analysis from the reader. All contributors to the site are pitching in on a personal basis. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of any of their respective employers (unless specifically stated) and are subject to their respective social media policies.

Code of Conduct

We don’t ask much of anyone who drops by beyond the obvious. Please say g’day – that’s what this site is all about. But also please remember that this is a public site, so every discussion is happening in a room where anyone can hear you. We hope there’ll be lots of clever people coming by. We guess that we’ll hear some different viewpoints. We look forward to the discussions that follow being enjoyable chats. We reserve the right to remove any inappropriate comments.

For those of us running the site, we also need to make a couple of promises. We’ll always be looking to provide you with the back up evidence for stuff that gets discussed. At the heart of evidence-based medicine there is also a need to incorporate the background experience of the clinician. We’ll always endeavour to make it clear when contributors are talking about things based on experience, or where that experience impacts on how they apply their understanding of the evidence.

We also promise to be respectful of patient privacy and confidentiality in any discussions on this site. Where cases discussed are based on real life cases some details may be changed so that no identifiable details are present. Where they are actual cases, we will have consent to present that case in this format.

We will not be accepting any sponsorships from any medical or device companies either. If there is any chance that a contributor has an affiliation or relationship with any such company, we will be asking them to disclose that. It would be great if any commenters did the same.

Lastly, we are very open to correction. If you spot a factual flaw, please point out and we will change it as quickly as possible (with the original and the amended version clear).