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Bernie Walker is a Flight paramedic working with STARS – which is the Shock Trauma Air Rescue Service – an EMS organisation that covers most of Western Canada.
Bernie has been with STARS as a flight paramedic for over 16 years now and these days plays a big part in their educational programs. So he is someone again with heaps of experience in a helicopter role but this time from the back of the cabin.
I am guilty of making the interviews for the podcast very pilot centric which is just a factor of my own background and experience but I would love to represent a range of helicopter aircrew roles.
It just seems to be that loadmasters and aircrewmen keep ducking for cover when I try to corner them. 🙂
So I really enjoyed chatting to Bernie about the flight paramedic role as it stretches my knowledge of the industry. I’m not expecting to be in an EMS position any time soon but for those of you that might be then Bernie gives a really good insight into many of the considerations that the team in the back have to deal with.
If you listen between the lines so to speak I think you’ll also get value from the current best practice approach to critical patient care when its applied to how we tackle emergency or non-standard airborne situations.
We head into the interview with Bernie explaining the EMS coverage in Western Canada and the typical career progression into the helicopter flight paramedic role.
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Links from this week’s episode:
The STARS organisation website
World Helicopter Day
Video produced by STARS showing the different careers in the organisation
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Got a question for Bernie about the flight paramedic role or STARS? Be part of the conversation below. If you’ve listened to the episode then don’t forget to leave links to your favourite crew resource management / human factors resources below.