Available Lectures

IAFAME provides accredited lectures (with CME credits) in the field of (international) air medical transfers.

Thes lectures can be held online or at your location.

History of Air Medical Transport

• The hot air balloons period.
• Transport by bi-plane without observation.
• Multi transport by remodeled military airplanes.
• Transport by helicopter during war times.

Operations

• Important insurances to have.
• Choice of medical personnel according to qualification and scope of care.
• Medical crew introduction.
• Initial training programme.
• Necessary medical equipment.
• Medication. How much to order, how to stock, how to check easily.
• Familiarisation with pilots' workload and duty times.
• Familiarisation with airplane and emergency equipment.
• Loading of the equipment. What to keep where.
• Safe loading and unloading of a patient.
• Procedures in the cabin. Your role in between of cabin crew and medical passenger.
• Communication with the office, the insurance/assistance company, the referring and receiving hospitals, and the ground ambulance companies.
• Documentation requirements.
• Travel documents, visa, vaccinations, health checks. 

Altitude Physiology

• The athmosphere.
• The gas laws with calculations.
• The gas laws and the human body.
• The gas laws and your equipment.
• The stressors of flight influencing your functionality.
• The stressors of flight influencing the health of the patient.
• Pressurisation and (rapid) decompression, TUC.
• Decompression sickness.
• How to counteract the negative effects of flying on your patient.
• The different environmental conditions for patients in bigger planes compared to smaller jets.

Intensive Care / Critical Care Transfers

• Necessary qualification of personnel for safe transfers.
• Necessary equipment.
• The importance of working space.
• Which information to collect before flying?
• Which communication to be done before flying?
• Which medical procedures to be done at which phase of the transfer.
• Necessary standard of ground ambulances.
• Documentation.
• Legal aspects. 

Mechanical Ventilation

• Basics of oxygenation and ventilation.
• Basic settings of a mechanical ventilator.
• Advanced settings of a mechanical ventilator.
• Different ventilator modes and how they differ.
• Actual ICU ventilation modes.
• What you can see from ventilation curves and loops.
• The importance of capnography, even in non-ventilated patients.
• Critical care transport ventilators and their specifications.
• Which critical care transport ventilators function well at altitude?
• Which critical care transport ventilators can ventilate a sick lung? 

Flight Nursing and Flight Physiotherapy

• Procedures to be done frequently.
• Physiotherapy even in small cabins.
• How to fight the effects of third spacing.
• How to perform procedures without losing lines.
• The positive effect on yourself working on and with the patient. 

Hygiene - Precautions

• Which vaccinations are a must, which are recommended?
• The problem with Malaria and chemoprophylaxis.
• The actual travel medical situation for Malaria.
• The actual travel medical situation for Yellow Fever.
• The actual travel medical situation for Typhoid Fever, Meningitis, Dengue, Chikungunya, Zika, MERS, and the dangers for us.
• Professional behaviour to prevent food poisoning while on a mission.

Hygiene - Flying an Infectious Patient

• Ways of transmission.
• Proper procedures for hand hygiene.
• Procedures to minimse the risk of getting infected or spreading the germ.
• Are the pilots at risk?
• Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
• How to protect yourself and the pilots and still have a workable situation.
• Disinfection of equipment and cabin. 
• Documentation.
• Communication (personnel, hospitals, ground ambulances, airport employees).

Hygiene - Multi Resistant Germs

• Classification of bacteria, spores and toxins.
• Colonisation location and precautions.
• How are they transmitted? Specific necessary PPE to prevent transmission.
• Survivability of germs on surfaces.
• Dangers to transfer personnel depending on situation in referring hospital.
• Countries with high rates of multi resistant germs. 

Resuscitation

• The latest guidelines from October 2015
• Basic Life Support
• Advanced Life Support
• Automated External Defibrillator
• (Near) drowning
• Allergic shock
• The typical signs of myocardial ischaemia during flight compared to on the ground. 

Trauma Management

• Initial assessment and stabilisation.
• Difficult airway and helpful equipment.
• The danger of ARDS and how to ventilate the trauma patient.
• Thoracal drainage placement for pneumothorax or hematothorax.
• Dealing with traumatic brain injury.
• Trauma induced coagulation disorders.
• Basics on fracture stabilisation.
• Lab results and what to correct before flight.
• The importance of blood gas analysis even in non-ventilated patients.
• What is still in some national guidelines but harms the patient?

Burns Management

• Estimation of degree and surface percentage.
• When breathing difficulties must be expected.
• Wound cover.
• Fluid management.
• Pain management.
• Positioning during flight.
• Choice of hospital (flight time vs expertise). 

Medical Diagnoses and Air Medical Transfer

Depending on the diagnosis, the treatment and the time since onset or treatment, a patient may have to be flown by air ambulance or may be flown by commercial airliner with or without a medical escort. We point out the options.

Neurology	Ophthalmology	Otorhinolaryngology	Cardiology
Pulmology	Gastroenterology	Urology	Gynaecology / Obstetrics
Surgery	Orthopedics	Paediatrics	Bariatric Patients

Ground Ambulance Transport

• The most dangerous part of the patient transfer.
• What to check when ordering a ground ambulance.
• What to check before entering a ground ambulance.
• What to check after having boarded a ground ambulance.

Air Medical Resource Management

• The history of CRM and its' limitations.
• The evolution of CRM.
• Cultural differences in CRM - aviation compared to medicine.
• The evolution to Air Medical Resource Management
• The single steps towards a good functioning team.
• No team player? No flight! 

Quality System

• How to install a quality system?
• Who should participate in which stage?
• Which medical data to collect?
• Which operational data to collect?
• Feedback from whom and how?
• Case review and analysis. 
• Written procedures and their necessity for quality.
• How to analyse the data?
• Quality meetings and the aim of improving.
• The circle of improvement.

Ditching and Surviving in the Cold

• How to prepare the cabin before ditching?
• Where to position necessary safety equipment?
• How to prepare the patient?
• How to position yourself before ditching?
• What to do when after ditching?
• How to find the exit?
• How to stay as warm as possible in the water?
• How to enter the life raft?
• How to use survival equipment?

Smoke and Fire in the Cabin

• How to detect and find a fire in the cabin?
• What is the main origin of fire and smoke in the cabin?
• Specific roles of the medical team in case of fire.
• What to prepare before attempting to fight the fire?
• How to approach a fire?
• How to use the axe?
• How to use the fire extinguisher?
• Different kinds of fire extinguishers and important things to know.

Hazardous Materials

• Different classes of hazardous materials and examples.
• What are the hazardous materials we encounter during our work?
• What are the health threats of the hazardous materials we encounter?
• What is the treatment when exposure occured?
• How to deal with biological and potentially infectious waste?

Aviation

• Aerodynamics.
• Parts of the airplane.
• Function of a jet engine.
• Air intake and pressurization.
• Pitot tube and static vent.
• Instruments in the cockpit.

Meteorology

• The climatic zones of the earth.
• Low pressure and high pressure areas and the generation of wind.
• The Coriolis effect.
• Fronts and specific weather phenomena.
• Local weather phenomena.
• Cloud types and their specifications.
• Where to expect turbulences, including CAT.
• Aviation weather reports and forecasts explained (METAR, TAF).