If really sick patients and a loading dose of adrenaline sounds exciting to you, helicopter EMS may be your thing! Nicholas sits down with Dr. Bill Hinckley, the medical director of Cincinnati’s AirCare flight program and former president of AMPA (Air Medical Physician’s Association) to learn more about what it’s like to be a flight physician. You can find more about AMPA at ampa.org, and consider becoming a member if you are interested in HEMS.

We reference UC’s tamingthesru.com in the episode, and Dr. Hinckley alludes to a few papers on the impact of physicians on outcomes for trauma HEMS transports:

1. Garner AA, Mann KP, Fearnside M, Poynter E, Gebski V. The Head Injury Retrieval Trial (HIRT): a single-centre randomised controlled trial of physician prehospital management of severe blunt head injury compared with management by paramedics only. Emerg Med J. 2015;32(11):869-875. doi:10.1136/emermed-2014-204390
2. Garner AA. The role of physician staffing of helicopter emergency medical services in prehospital trauma response. Emerg Med. 2004;16(4):318-323. doi:10.1111/j.1742-6723.2004.00636.x
3. Baxt WG, Moody P. The Impact of a Physician as Part of the Aeromedical Prehospital Team in Patients With Blunt Trauma. JAMA. 1987;257(23):3246-3250. doi:10.1001/jama.1987.03390230082029
4. Den Hartog D, Romeo J, Ringburg AN, Verhofstad MHJ, Van Lieshout EMM. Survival benefit of physician-staffed Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) assistance for severely injured patients. Injury. 2015;46(7):1281-1286. doi:10.1016/j.injury.2015.04.013

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