Greater Sydney Area HEMS

G'day and welcome back. We are currently editing new episodes of the podcast, they will be coming out soon - episodes on brain injury associated shock, post-ROSC care and more.  In the meantime, here is a re-post of an episode with the pre-hospital ECMO (Pre-Care) team in conversation with senior road paramedics. In this episode, the team discuss the challenges and successes of rolling out this tr...

Welcome back! We are busy recording new episodes, in the meantime here is a re-post of an episode prior to our move to Spotify/podcasts with Emergency and Pre-Hospital Consultant Dr Ian Ferguson. Ian is the lead author on a published randomised control trial assessing the haemodynamic effects of adding fentanyl to an induction regime of ketamine and rocuronium for rapid sequence intubation in the...

G'day, and welcome back.  Pre-hospital clinicians are used to working under pressure. Teams work in often austere environments, with limited resources caring for some of the most severe patient pathologies at their most undifferentiated.  Within all this, individuals and teams must perform at their peak. But this is easier said than done. So how, in this most niche of clinical areas, can an indivi...

Hello and welcome back. This is part two of our chat with Dr Matt Hooper, continuing our conversation on emergency last aid. In this episode, we discuss the hows and whens involved when informing a family of their loved one's death, as well as the setting in which to do this. Too, we discuss the importance of maintaining space and safety for one's self and the team, and how a system can encourage...

G'day, and welcome back. In today's episode, we are delighted and privileged to be joined by South Australia's Dr Matt Hooper. The practice of medicine - including pre-hospital medicine - often focuses on life preservation. But, as acute care clinicians we often also find ourselves caring for patients at the end of their life. Too, we find ourselves caring for their relatives and loved ones, and t...

G'day and welcome back. Damage control resuscitation - what is it, why should a pre-hospital provider do it, what does it look like in real life, and what are the results.  These are but some of the questions asked in this episode of Dr Dan Nevin and Mr Zane Perkins, Consultants with London's Air Ambulance. In conversation with Sydney's Dr Ian Ferguson, we explore this approach to the care of the...

G'day and welcome back to the podcast. ECMO....in trauma? Today, we are talking about a more general emergency medicine / intensive care medicine topic, that of advanced trauma care. It is fair to raise an eyebrow at 'advanced trauma care' and 'ECMO' in the same sentence - these patients are anatomically disrupted, prone to bleeding and suffering huge multi-system injuries. So placing them onto a...

G'day and welcome back into part two of our conversation with Prof Sheldon Cheskes from Toronto, Canada. Here we continue our discussion about refractory cardiac dysrhythmias with the Sheldon, the principal investigator of 'The dose VF' study.  In this part two, we talk to Sheldon about chemical strategies to overcome these dysrhythmias, as well as ask Sheldon about this best case ever - its a cra...

G'day and welcome back to the HEMS debrief podcast.  We are back with part one of a two part episode with Professor Sheldon Cheskes from Toronto, Canada. Sheldon is a Professor of Emergency Medicine by trade, a clinical scientist and a medical director for ambulance services within the Canadian province of Ontario. Perhaps, though, Sheldon is best known for his work as the principal investigator i...

G'day and welcome back. Today, we continue our conversation on pre-hospital thoracotomies. To do this, we have teamed up with Professor Ewoud Ter Avest, an Emergency Physician with the London HEMS service. Ewoud is an author on the London's recently published review paper discussing the Service's experience with pre-hospital thoracotomies over the past 20 years. In conversation with our own Dr Ian...

G'day, and welcome back. In this part two of our chat with Prof Laurie Morrison from Toronto, we continue our conversation around the latest ILCOR guidelines. We discuss, amongst other things, strategies to manage recurrent / refractory dysrhythmias, as well as the use of mechanical CPR devices and the administration of adrenaline. Too, we quiz Laurie on how guidelines and written and interpreted,...

G'day, and welcome back to the HEMS debrief - continuing our chats on cardiac arrest.  We are thrilled to be again joined by Prof Laurie Morrison from Toronto, Canada. Laurie is an Emergency Physician and has dedicated her career to the research and improvement of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest care. To this end, Laurie is a member of ILCOR where she has previously been named a 'Giant in Resuscita...

G'day and welcome back to the Debrief, another episode here of the cardiac arrest deep dive. Today is a cracker - we have our very own Dr Cliff Reid in conversation with Nat, discussing PEA. Now, anyone who knows Cliff will know he is passionate about many things, one of which is PEA - specifically the nomenclature around PEA and the differences between PEA patients, and thus how we treat them; no...

G'day, and welcome back to the Sydney HEMS Debrief podcast.  Today, we re-introduce some more general pre-hospital retrieval medicine matters, and what could be more retrieval medicine than a pre-hospital thoracotomy. Joining the pod today, we have Dr Ian Ferguson and CCP Chris Ennis who together discuss their recently published research paper on this HALO procedure.  This case series reviews all...

G'day, and thanks for tuning in to another episode of the HEMS Debrief podcast - this is our focused series on cardiac arrest.  Today we are joined by Canadian Physician-Researcher Dr Brian Grunau. Brian is an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia Department of Emergency Medicine and works clinically as an Emergency Physician at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, Canada. His res...

G'day and welcome back to the HEMS debrief podcast.  It is 2026, and we are kicking off with an episode of the cardiac arrest mini-series dedicated to paediatric cardiac arrest.  Sadly Nat could not join, so instead Sam alone is in conversation with Dr Janice Tijssen. Janice is a paediatric critical care physician from London, Ontario. Having trained in London (Ontario) and Toronto, Janice is now...

G'Day and welcome back to the HEMS debrief, cardiac arrest mini-series. This is part two of our conversation with the pre-hospital ECMO team from Paris, France.  Following part one, in this part two we continue to chat with Alice and Lionel about their extended research in the out-of-hospital cardiac arrest space, including but not limited to rapid cooling and ventilation strategies. Too, we discu...

G'day and welcome back to the Sydney HEMS Debrief podcast - this is our focused mini-series on Cardiac Arrest.  Today's episode is a big one. We have the absolute privilege of speaking to the Dr Alice Hutin and Prof Lionel Lamhaut from the pre-hospital ECMO team in Paris, France.  The team, part of the Service d’Aide Medical d’Urgence (aka SAMU) in Paris, have been performing pre-hospital ECMO for...

G'day and welcome back to the Sydney HEMS debrief, with our focus still firmly on cardiac arrest.  In this episode 14, Nat is joined by Dr Helen Oliver in conversation with Dr Caroline Leech from the UK. Caroline is an emergency and pre-hospital physician who's academic interest focuses on maternal cardiac arrest. Specifically, Caroline's work concerns resuscitative hysterotomy; the when, the how,...

Welcome back, this is part two of Nat's chat with Dr PO Berve from Norway.  Continuing the conversation, Nat and PO discuss physiological markers of ALS effectiveness as well as broach how to most judiciously use adrenaline during cardiac arrest. Too, PO dives into how to use the end tidal capnogram as a marker of CPR effectiveness - and it is not how you may think! Of course, this would not be a...

As we move our the podcast onto both Spotify and Apple Podcasts, we are re-posting this episode originally published in March 2024.    In this episode, Nat and Alex join Sam to discuss the Sydney PRECARE pre-hospital ECMO trial as it is just getting under way. Focusing on workflows and team integration, Nat and Alex share their experiences, challenges and successes in these early days for the tria...

Hello, and welcome back to the Sydney HEMS debrief podcast. This is our focused series on cardiac arrest.    Today we have part one of two in conversation with Dr PO Berve from Norway. PO is an Anaesthetist and Pre-Hospital physician from Oslo where he works on the physician response car of the region. PO's research has been absolutely fundamental to the modern understanding of CPR physiology and...

Welcome back to the Sydney HEMS debrief. We are up to episode 11! Today, we are pivoting towards toxicology. Specifically, we discuss some of the more common toxidromes encountered pre-hospitally, how they cause cardiac arrest, and what providers – in particular pre-hospital providers – may do in order to best resuscitate these patients. In addition to some broader and very applicable learning the...

This is part two of our conversation with Dr Mike Lauria. Join us as Nat and Mike continue to delve into team performance. In this episode, Nat and Mike discuss human factors gold including but not limited to how to accept imperfection and continue to deliver optimal team performance when things are going south, how to instil calm in a team whilst maintaining the momentum of care, and how to adapt...

Hello, and welcome back to the Sydney HEMS debrief podcast. Thank you for your patience – I have been taking the long way home from Canada, but am delighted to be back in Sydney and now ready to go with more episodes of our focused series on cardiac arrest. In this part one of two episodes, we are pivoting away from the technical towards human factors and team performance. In doing this, we are th...