Wilderness and Rescue Medicine 7th Edition Jeffrey Isaac, PA-C and David E. Johnson, MD

Wilderness and Rescue Medicine 240

Chapter 33 Review: The Medical Role in Search and Rescue

• It is often up to the medical officer to set the level of urgency and help develop a mission profile that keeps risk within the range of acceptable. • Any communication directly between the medical officer and the scene or reporting party can be useful. • Whatever the situation, and for any role to which you are assigned, you should know at a minimum who you are working for, who is working for you, what you are doing, and how long you are expected to do it. • Supervision of field operations, where most medical personnel are deployed, is usually delegated to an operations section chief. • If you are responding to an unfamiliar operation, look for the IC or the command post (CP). In the field, look for the operations section chief or medical leader. • Your preparation and response will be determined by the type of incident that is involved. • Most emergency response to medical problems, from the street to the open ocean, generates risk well in excess of any benefit from speed. • The benefit of helicopter use is seldom in speed of access, but more commonly in reducing risk to rescuers.

The Operations Section Chief.