Before the Hospital

Connect with us Dr Biyamba graduated from medical school in Mongolia and went straight to the ambulance. No transition, no supervised ramp-up - just the dispatch system in Ulaanbaatar and whatever came next. In a single summer shift, he treats 30 to 40 patients. In winter, that volume climbs to 90. Of those, roughly half genuinely require an emergency ambulance. The rest receive assessment, advice...

Connect with us The call has started. The patient is waiting. And the clinician is alone with their thoughts ... until now. Every ambulance call begins the same way. A dispatch notification. A vehicle moving. A clinician alone, working through what might confront them and what they will do when they arrive. That window - from dispatch to arrival - is what Joe Acker calls dead time. It is largely u...

Connect with us When Dr Suvd Nugui returned to Mongolia after training in the United States, she came back to a system where most of her colleagues had never heard the word “paramedic.” Neither had her parents. Her solution was simple and radical: if she could not be everywhere, she could train people who could. Seven years later, she is training more than 80 clinicians and drivers annually with a...

Connect with us Paramedic James Stubley comes from one of the most advanced prehospital aeromedical platforms in the UK. Double-crewed, doctor-qualified, critical care at altitude. He is now teaching Mongolian on-road ambulance doctors and coming back for a second year to finish the job he started. This episode is a short, direct answer to this question: can you deliver emergency care with basic e...

Connect with us Dolly McPherson is an aeromedical paramedic with the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance (UK). Her normal shift involves a helicopter, a doctor, advanced airway and trauma equipment and closed-loop communication rehearsed to the point of instinct. When something goes wrong, she has everything she needs within arm’s reach. In Mongolia, she has her hands and whatever the team c...

Connect with us Canadian paramedic Joe Acker watched a Mongolian ambulance doctor suture a head laceration on the roadside in the capital Ulaanbaatar, write a prescription and send the patient home. In Canada, the UK or Australia, that patient goes to hospital. No question. That moment has stayed with him - not because Mongolia got it wrong, but because they got something right that well-resourced...

Connect with us Mongolia’s ambulance doctors are qualified physicians. They know the medicine. What most of them have never been taught is what to do with that knowledge before the patient reaches hospital. That is the problem international paramedic Leon Baranowski flew to Ulaanbaatar to help solve - for the third time. This conversation was recorded mid-programme at the 103 Ambulance Service, wh...

Connect with us Dr Judy is an ambulance doctor with the Ulaanbaatar Ambulance Centre, one of the frontline clinicians EMS Global Foundation has been working alongside since 2017. During the 2025 mission, she did something that captures the programme’s direction exactly: she participated as a trainee, contributed as a translator for the international instructor team, and helped bridge the gap betwe...

Connect with us Jarrod Bell is a wilderness intensive care paramedic from Tasmania (Australia) - and a two-year EMS Global Foundation volunteer instructor in Ulaanbaatar. In this episode, Jarrod reflects on what draws a Tasmanian paramedic back to Mongolia for a second year: the adaptability and workload of Mongolia's ambulance doctors, the overlooked importance of environmental control in ex...

Connect with us Tania Johnston is an intensive care flight paramedic, emergency nurse, and academic based in British Columbia - and a two-year EMS Global Foundation volunteer in Ulaanbaatar. In this episode, Tania reflects on what she observed between her first and second mission: the strengths of Mongolia’s ambulance doctors, the opportunity to bridge contemporary prehospital practice with operat...