The Medical Team
CareFlight medical teams vary in composition depending on the location and clinicial needs of the patient, so individual team members can undertake a diverse range of missions including helicopter rapid response critical care, rotary and fixed wing inter-hospital retrieval, domestic and international retrieval and road ambulance retrieval. All medical staff are required to complete a comprehensive training program before starting active duty.
Doctors
CareFlight doctors are specialists or senior registrars in one of the three fields of critical care: anaesthesia, emergency medicine or intensive care. These doctors, equipped with mobile intensive care units, are able to provide hospital-standard treatment to the seriously ill and injured at the incident site and while in transit. They administer blood transfusions, anaesthetise and intubate patients and place them on life support systems. In the course of their operational training, our doctors learn and practise winch rescue operations, radio procedures and safety and survival. CareFlight runs a Pre-hospital Trauma Course which teaches the doctors additional skills in caring for the critically injured outside of the familiar hospital environment.
Registered Nurses
CareFlight employs registered nurses for our Top End Medical Retrieval Service (bases at Darwin, Nhulunbuy and Katherine) and for our CareFlight International Air Ambulance Service ( bases at Darwin and Sydney). All our registered nurses are experienced critical care clinicians. They have current certification in Retrieval Nursing, Advanced Life Support, Immediate Life Support, Advanced Cardiac Life Support and/or Trauma Nursing Program (TNP) or Trauma Nursing Core Course (TNCC). Our training and equipment are standardised, giving us the ability to move nurses from base to base.
Paramedics
The paramedics who crew on the CareFlight helicopters out of our Westmead base are on secondment from the NSW Ambulance Service.