Haemorrhage and Shock Academic Forum

We've had our final public Academic Forum of 2015, and by all accounts it was a fantastic night! Tonight's theme was on Haemorrhage and Shock, and we kicked off with a talk from St George's Hospital Paediatric Emergency Consultant and Kent & Surrey Air Ambulance Consultant Dr Kevin Enright. 

Dr Enright talked about the history of doctors in the prehospital field and the recent advances in carrying blood/blood products via the air ambulance out to prehospital scenes. He then talked through a number of cases and mechanisms of injury, from splenic rupture to aortic dissection, and bleeding head injuries to tension pneumothoracies forgotten in the panic of treating bleeding. Overall Dr Enright's talk will ensure there's now 200+ prehospital clinicians well armed for recognising and treating haemorrhage. 

For the second half our audience broke into year groups, with first years going through the ABCDE approach, second years learning practically how to deal with haemorrhage, third/fourth/fifth years learning about burns management and fluid replacement, and paramedics/paramedic students going trough when and when not to use to fluids in the prehospital environment. We have to give special thanks to Dr Anne Weaver, Dr John McKenna, and Lead Paramedic Sarah Mortimer from London's Air Ambulance; PC Andrew Barrett a police medic; and a huge number of LAS Paramedics for giving up their time to teach students all about haemorrhage and shock. 

Finally we can't finish without mentioning our very Dr Gareth Grier, who won the Association of Air Ambulances Doctor of the Year award last week! A huge congratulations and well done to an inspirational leader and teacher.

We hope to see you all back in January for the next academic forum on London Trauma. We've taught Airway, Breathing, and Circulation in 2015... 2016 will be bringing high profile cases and complex trauma to the PCP Academic Forums!

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