Posted in Rick's Posts on Jun 29th, 2008
Over the past few months I have undergone a fair amount of training and preparation with the Mediflight Retrieval service. Not long ago I finished the requisite competencies and was signed off to “go solo”. Annoyingly, after all that effort, there are are no shifts available. When I signed up there was a shortage of [...]
Posted in Rick's Posts on Jun 26th, 2008
After the days off and frivolities in the sea I’m back at work again this week. I thought I’d share an aspect of critical care medicine that plays an unseen, yet important, influence. As I’ve mentioned in a previous posting, the intensive care unit as a whole is measured and assessed by successful outcomes and [...]
Posted in Rick's Posts on Jun 22nd, 2008
This post is mostly going to be photos to show what I’ve been getting up to underwater. Since I’ve only just got the waterproof case for our camera, my pictures are rather amateur, but hopefully with time I will learn. On the boat on the way out to the Dredge, an old channel dredger deliberately [...]
Posted in Rick's Posts on Jun 21st, 2008
In recent weeks a rather sinister form of hysteria has been whipped up in South Australia. As fuel prices increase the major parties have been seeking to take advantage. The liberals (the Aussie equivalent of the Tories) have jumped on the populist band wagon by claiming they would have instituted a 10c a litre cut [...]
Posted in Rick's Posts on Jun 17th, 2008
I acheived another first today as it was not only my first helicopter retrieval “mission” with the MediFlight Retrieval Service but it was also my first ever trip in a helicopter. It was an unusual experience in many ways. In a normal plane you can tell when we have taken off as the plane goes [...]
Posted in Rick's Posts on Jun 13th, 2008
It would be nice to think we are motivated entirely by altruistic intentions, but in reality our lives are governed by reciprocity. Recently, I volunteered to tutor medical students from the University of Adelaide. Once a week we have an hour-long session to gently introduce them to real patients. This is their first exposure to [...]
Posted in BodyPump on Jun 9th, 2008
Three months have gone by and it’s that time again. This morning we were treated to the launch of BodyPump 66. As before I present my review, complete with tracklisting, for those who will have yet to experience it or are simply interested. Warmup: A nicely paced track on this release working all the usual [...]
Posted in Rick's Posts on Jun 8th, 2008
In a rare lull in my otherwise busy life today was a perfect opportunity for a dive. The weather was almost ideal, with minimal wind and swell, but the water was a little chilly at 14 degrees. We did two dives today, both off a boat. The first was to the wreck of “The Claris”, [...]
Posted in Rick's Posts on Jun 6th, 2008
I’m going a little bit obscure with the title this time. Air – this represents the flight to Melbourne and back I took today. While not entirely enjoyable, and a little choppy coming back into Adelaide, I coped and wasn’t too tachycardic on return to terra firma. R – this stands for research. Recently I [...]
Posted in Rick's Posts on Jun 3rd, 2008
Those of you who also work in a critical care environment will confirm that it can be a thankless job. You are asked to take the sickest patients in the hospital and defy the disease or injuries that are killing them. It is not unreasonable for an intensive care unit to have a mortality rate [...]
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