World Extreme Medicine Podcast

Zoe Clift is a physiotherapist, who works for Humanity & Inclusion, a charity that works along side vulnerable and disabled people in areas of poverty, disaster and conflict. Zoe is the UK Medical Team's Rehab Project Manager and spoke to World Extreme Medicine independently about her knowledge and experience about safeguarding in the humanitarian arena. Join Deb Swann as Zoe explores her path...

Justin Oliver Davis is a retired soldier, amputee, mountaineer, adventurer and keynote speaker. In 2011, while serving with 2nd Battalion The Rifles, in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Justin was leading a Quick Reaction Force patrol to intercept a group of enemy insurgents that had ambushed another British call-sign. Justin was providing safe passage by searching for Improvised Explosive Devices,...

Join us as World Extreme Medicine Founder and CEO Mark Hannaford and Luca Alfatti, Logistical Lead for the convoys discuss the progress of the work they have carried out so far. Following their live session last week their conversation with Shawna Pandya is now available to listen on demand. The team have transported medical supplies to the area in Ukraine where they are needed, here we discuss th...

In this conversation I’m talking with Carl Betts about his reflections on patience within quality improvement and change within ambulance trusts. Carl is a Paramedic and quality improvement fellow based in Sheffield working for the ambulance service. He has been a Paramedic for 9 years and has a 10-year extensive history of expeditions across multiple continents. He is not a stranger to the podcas...

Scott has been working in the field of connectivity, telemedicine, and cold chain supply in off-grid regions of Africa and Haiti since 2011.  In that year, he initiated telemedicine live consults from the Maasai Mara region of Kenya and in 2011 was a presenter on telemedicine and satellite communications to the First International Congress on Pathogens at the Human-Animal Interface in Addis A...

Welcome to the World Extreme Medicine podcast….. In this conversation we are talking with Steve Wood the vice president of Delivery for Personal Strengths (UK) and is a facilitator, trainer and senior manager within the core strength group. He has extensive experience of developing and facilitating training focusing on leadership, team dynamics, conflict management and personal development. Steve...

In this episode we speak with Karen O’Neill; Advanced Clinical Practitioner and humanitarian around the unfolding Ukraine crisis. Karen has a wealth of experience of delivering aid programmes in various contexts including Sierra Leone, the Philippines, Malawi, Mumbai, and Uganda. In the episode we discuss the importance of collaboration within deployment of aid in Ukraine, the cluster approach des...

Richard Garner is a career safety and security professional with global expertise in risk mitigation and threat management. He retired from US Naval Special Operations and continued work in both high threat and personal protection operations domestically and abroad. Mr. Garner has managed and conducted security operations in support of non profit organisations, the US State Department and other go...

in this episode, host Stephen P Wood and Dr. Pav Singh discuss ocular emergencies in expedition medicine. although a lot of attention is paid to high altitude cerebral edema, pulmonary edema and mountain sickness, eye injuries are quite common in expedition medicine as well. This can include anything from corneal abrasions, globe injuries, foreign bodies or infections. Stephen and Dr. Singh discus...

Beth is a professional trail runner and NHS paediatric registrar based in Derbyshire, UK. Some career highlights include setting the Bob Graham round record, two x top-5 finishes at the UTMB and several GB vests at ultra-distances. In 2021 she took some time out from medicine and headed to the US to prepare for the Western States 100 race. She won the race in the second fastest women's t...

Lucy is a 29 year old explorer and speaker from Suffolk and is not stranger to extreme environments having previously summited Denali, crossed the High Sierra in California and been dramatically airlifted from the mountains in Tajikistan.  In this episode WEM Medical Director Dr Will Duffin speaks to Lucy about her most recent adventure in the Amazon: a world first trek - through 250 miles of...

World Extreme Medicine Medical Director, Dr Will Duffin catches up with Charlie and Adam, two ED Doctors who have just completed a 3,000 mile rowing race across the Atlantic. The Emergensea Duo, Dr Charlotte Fleury & Dr Adam Baker, are a husband and wife pair of Emergency Medicine specialty doctors in Devon. You may have seen them recently become the first married couple in the world to comple...

In this episode, Stephen Wood sits down with Julie Rak to discuss gender equity in mountaineering. Junko Tabei isn’t as much a household name as Edmund Hillary or Jon Krakauer, but she is one of the world’s most accomplished climbers. She was the first woman to summit Mt. Everest and has also the first woman to climb the seven summits. She is listed as a “housewife” in several sources, which could...

Cataracts are the major cause of blindness and visual impairment in developing countries and contribute to more than 90% of the total disability adjusted life years. In 2020, an estimated 15.2 million (12.7-17.9) people worldwide aged 50+ years were blind due to cataract. In this episode, we talk with Dr James Guzek MD and Director AJ Martinson about the movie ‘The End of Blindness’ and the work b...

In this episode Will Duffin and Eoin Walker talk about the recently released 'Wilderness Medical Society Clinical Practice Guidelines on Anaphylaxis'. They examine and analyse the paper's remit, cohort involved, methodological structure, guideline recommendations, and variations compared to other guidelines (NICE, Resuscitation Council). One of the key seminal recommendations that are no...

In this episode WEM Medical Director Dr Will Duffin is joined by two experienced humanitarian emergency medical responders from frontline medical aid charity UK-Med: Emergency Department nurse and UK-Med’s Health Referent David Anderson and Consultant Paediatrician - Infectious Diseases and Immunology, Stephen Owens. They discuss the findings of UK Med’s Global Health Responders Report (Sept 2021)...

Harrison Carter is a conservation biologist, storyteller and explorer with a fascination with human/wildlife conflict that has taken him to some of the world's most extraordinary places. He has travelled and filmed in over 50 countries worldwide, and his expeditions include traversing the Guyanese jungle, Indonesian rainforests, and Sri Lankan lowlands in search of the world's most deadly snakes a...

Alex is a trainee emergency medicine doctor based in Bristol, who wholeheartedly believes in taking the road less travelled. She joins us to share some of her insights into carving a career in expedition medicine, and how developing this passion has enhanced her NHS job. She has been working as an expedition medic since 2017 and took five years out of training to work for 18 months in New Zealand...

In this conversation we talk with Wayne Auton about his journey through three domains of practice; the military, pre-hospital care, and mountaineering. We examine the concept of High Performing Teams (HPT) in all three domains and some of the features of HPT that unite the different practices.   Wayne initially joined the military/Royal Marine Commandos and through time specialised as a sniper. He...

Host Stephen P. Wood follows up with Luke Huntley, Australian snake catcher, after their discussion during the WEM 2021 conference. Stephen and Luke discuss the training that goes into snake catching as well as the legal requirements to be a certified snake catcher in Australia. Carpet pythons and Eastern Brown snakes are the most common snakes encountered in Luke’s work and Stephen and Luke discu...

In this conversation, we talked with Carl Betts about his reflections on critical analysis in paramedic practice. Carl is a Paramedic and quality improvement lead-based in Sheffield working for the ambulance service. He has been a Paramedic for 10 years and has a 10-year extensive history of expeditions featuring multiple trips to Everest base camp, K2, Mongolia, South Africa, Swaziland, Kangchenj...

In this episode podcast host Stephen Wood and adventure paramedic Mike Hudson talk about Mike's experience as a paramedic and lead safety specialist for the Discovery channel's Shark Week production team. Steve and Mike talk about Mike's background as both a paramedic and diver and how he brought this experience to develop a unique opportunity as the lead dive safety and remote medical specialist...

In this episode, Dr Jen Sherman is joined by Anna Wells. Having qualified as a Doctor in the Scottish Highlands. Anna has successfully undergone a career change and now runs her own adventure guiding company in Scotland. Anna is passionate about the mountains. The freedom of wide-open spaces and the rush of trying hard is where she is happiest. Her favourite activities are rock climbing, summer al...

Dr. Vidar Magnusson is an anesthesiologist, intensivist and EMS physician in Reykjavik, Iceland. He is the current National Medical Director for pre-hospital services in Iceland, a post he held both between 2011- 2014, and again from 2016 to the present. He has extensive EMS and air-medical experience including serving as a medical officer with the British Army NATO coalition forces, ground EMS in...

In this conversation, we talk with Trixton May about his clinical experiences in Takoradi, Ghana. Trixton took himself to Ghana as a second-year paramedic student with aspirations to serve in areas less fortunate and developed contexts than his reality back in the UK. In the discussion, we explore the variety of experiences and revelations he had in this developing healthcare system. Trixton has w...