The Toowoomba and Roma LifeFlight bases will welcome three new critical care doctors, who have swapped their hospital careers for one in the sky.
Dr Sarah Ayles is one of them, and she brings with her a deep understanding and passion for regional medicine, having grown up in Toowoomba and worked at the local hospital.
“I think what I enjoy the most about regional medicine is that real sense that if you’re working in a public hospital in your smaller community, you are serving that whole community,” Dr Ayles said.
“It could be someone’s grandma that’s fallen over and broken their hip, or whether it’s a newborn child, they’re all coming into somewhere like Toowoomba Base Hospital.”
Dr Ayles completed her junior doctor years and emergency training in her hometown, before setting off to Brisbane to complete her tertiary and trauma training.
With only six months of training left to go, she wanted to finish it in Toowoomba, where it all started.
“I’m very grateful and glad to be going home for the last six months of my training,” Dr Ayles said.
She will join Dr Daniel Bundock and Dr David Morris in aeromedical teams based at Toowoomba and Roma.
The trio make up 26 doctors about to head to their new bases across Queensland. But first, the new critical care doctors had to undergo a week of intensive aeromedical training at the LifeFlight Training Academy, and complete Helicopter Underwater Escape Training (HUET), rescue winching and clinical scenario training.
More than 180 medical professionals, including doctors, are employed by LifeFlight, making it the largest employer of aeromedical doctors in Australia.
LifeFlight HUET Manager Mick Dowling, said the doctors go through four scenarios in the simulator to equip them with the necessary skills to escape an underwater helicopter, in the unlikely event of a crash into water.
“Worldwide figures tell us that when an aircraft or helicopter goes into the water, it’s going to rotate over because it’s top heavy,” Mr Dowling said.
“In our simulation training, the occupants are put into a position that replicates the helicopter.
“The simulator allows us to teach them the skills to stay orientated, and once they have adopted those skills, they will have no problems finding exits.”
After been submerged, spun and lifted out of the water, the doctors took to the sky for winch training.
LifeFlight aircrew officer Brett Hansen, said the winching exercises taught doctors the vital life-saving skills needed to reach patients located in remote and often inaccessible areas.
“As a rescue organisation, winching is probably the most dangerous thing we do and it’s pretty crucial to how we operate,” Mr Hansen said.
The new critical care doctors were taken through winching individually, then in pairs and finally with a stretcher as part of the exercises.
“When operating in a confined area that we can’t land in, it’s crucial to have those skills,” he said.
The new recruits also put their pre-hospital clinical skills to the test at the Queensland Combined Emergency Services Academy at Whyte Island in Brisbane, where they participated in several high-pressure scenarios.
Each simulation was designed to mimic a real-life, worst-case scenario the doctors may be confronted with, such as a multi-casualty car crash, a house party incident and even a boating disaster.
Toowoomba is LifeFlight’s busiest base with the LifeFlight rescue and LifeFlight Surat Gas Aeromedical Service (SGAS) chopper crews coming to the aid of a record 891 people in the past Financial Year.
Meanwhile, the Roma SGAS crew, based at the Clive Berghofer LifeFlight Centre, helped 58 people and notched up 168 flight hours.
The SGAS partners generously donate 150 flying hours each year to assure the Toowoomba and Roma communities of aeromedical coverage.
The majority of LifeFlight critical care doctors’ work is performed on behalf of Queensland Health, tasked by Retrieval Services Queensland, within Queensland Ambulance Service.
