Newsletter
November 2007
Hello to all our readers and welcome to the latest edition of the EML newsletter which we hope you'll find useful and interesting.
We are very busy as ever down here at EML HQ; we've just been out to Oman and Dubai for the diving course recce and two EML Directors attended The Mountain & Wilderness Medicine World Congress 2007 in Aviemore, Scotland. We are also delighted to announce the dates for the diving and marine medicine course - further details can be found below.
Happy reading.
What's in this issue:
Course news -what’s going on and where
We have now finalised the dates for our Diving medicine & marine medicine course next October, after our successful recce out in Oman at the Bandar Khairan dive camp..
Polar Course - Norway 17th - 23rd February 2008.
LIMITED TO 30 PLACES
A winter extreme climate expedition medicine course for or anyone wanting to work in a polar, high altitude or arctic environment. For further details click here. Wait list only.
EML UK Course - Keswick, Cumbria 17th - 20th March 2008.
LIMITED TO 60 PLACES
Held in the stunning Newlands Centre, Keswick this course is for anyone aspiring to become and expedition medic. Read about the recent course in the BMJ for further details about the course click here.
NEW Desert Course - Namibia 17th - 23rd August 2008
LIMITED TO 30 PLACES
Expedition Medicine is very excited at being able to offer a comprehensive course for all those medical professionals responsible for clients, patients or team members in a desert environment. The course aims to introduce participants to the skills required to be a valuable member of a desert expeditionary team, and to care for and treat injuries and illnesses likely to occur in this harsh environment. Set in the stunning Damaraland area in Namibia, for further details click here.
NEW Diving Medicine- Oman - 18th - 24th Ocotber 2008.
LIMITED TO 30 PLACES
We are very excited at being able to offer an inspirational Diving Medicine Course for all those medical professionals responsible for clients or expedition team members in a diving or marine environment. The course aims to introduce participants to the skills required to manage the common medical problems, which may emerge in a diving or marine environment. For application forms or further details visit our website.
Jungle Course - Costa Rica - 9th - 15th November 2008.
LIMITED TO 30 PLACES
Our jungle course is going strength to strength we are now running our 3rd course in Costa Rica. Ideal for those interested in tropical and jungle medicine. For further details click here.
Luanne Freer talks about the world's highest clinic
 Dr Luanne Freer is the current president of the Wilderness Medical Society, and the medical director for Medcor Special Projects, Yellowstone National Park. Luanne has worked as a volunteer physician in Nepal for the Himalayan Rescue Association since 1999, and in 2003 she founded the first-ever medical clinic at Mt. Everest Base Camp, which she continues to direct and staff every spring climbing season.
When I began my medical career I had no idea what my passion was to be nor why it was important to develop a passion in life; a wise mentor suggested I come up with one quickly. His sage advice was that simply practicing my craft would get old and stale with time; I needed something that stimulated me beyond a paycheck. I found my passion in the wilderness of the Himalayan mountains and among the Sherpa people. How did I get from a classic suburban upbringing/lifestyle and inner city medical practice to the top of the world?
A seemingly random invitation to join a medical volunteer mission to Nepal in 1999 changed my life and revealed my true passion to me. I was introduced to the beautiful mountains of Nepal but more importantly to the Sherpa people, the most gentle and inspiring people I had ever met, as well as the astounding need evident in their developing world. I returned to Nepal during the spring of 2002 as a volunteer physician at the Himalayan Rescue Association (HRA) clinic at Pheriche (4280m) and then conceived the idea of a medical clinic for all at Everest base camp (EBC). During that time, I visited friends on climbing expeditions on Nepal’s south side EBC, and was approached by many climbers (foreign and Nepali alike) and their support staff for medical advice. I was surprised to find that many of the expeditions, even some of the largest, had no team physician. Although many expedition leaders have far more experience recognizing and treating altitude illness than most physicians, many had little or no medical training, and I was surprised to find some of them regularly dispensing prescription medications to their teammates for maladies ranging from cough to diarrhea to abdominal pain – sometimes with disastrous results. Some of the private expedition physicians were understandably reluctant to treat non-team-member climbers for medical problems. I met an occasional expedition physician who was unfamiliar with treatment of serious altitude illness. For all of these reasons and the fact that I had a desire to support the mission of the Himalayan Rescue Association (which uses proceeds collected from relatively wealthy western visitors to fund low cost/free health care for local villagers,) I lobbied the HRA board of directors to support a new clinic at EBC. Expecting record numbers at Everest, we set up the clinic in April 2003 to coincide with the 50th golden jubilee celebration of Hillary and Norgays’ first ascent of Everest.
Much of the preceding year was spent attempting to notify both commercial and private climbing expedition teams of the plan to provide medical care for any team at our facility. Countless hours were spent recruiting sponsors (mostly from the US), collecting donated medications and supplies, recruiting other volunteer physicians to help staff the clinic, and finding an expedition/trekking company to provide tents, food and power for our team.
As anticipated, there were bumps along the way, but we were up and running on April 2nd 2003. We treated hundreds of patients for maladies ranging from gastrointestinal illnesses to frostbite and deadly high altitude illnesses.
Careful planning and provisioning prepared us with the proper medications and supplies to stabilize our patients for evacuation and descent or, in many cases, to definitively treat the illness or injury. Ninety percent of our patients were climbers or their support staff; the remaining 10% were trekkers-through or media and just over half of our patients were native Nepali. Not only was our clinic a convenience for many, but many expeditions recognized the cost effectiveness as well as the comfort of being treated by altitude-experienced physicians who were well-acquainted with the health system and challenges in Nepal.
As with other businesses, humanitarian or not, fiscal matters are important in determining the future of a venture, and we lost money in 2003. But our organization was committed to carrying on during future spring climbing seasons. By early fall 2003, we were lucky to have accumulated more donated clinic supplies and equipment, and we returned to Everest in April 2004 with brand new custom-made tents, and solar panels to enable us to power our equipment with clean, quiet, renewable energy. We were fortunate to have the continued support of a managed website from friends who believe in the mission (follow our progress daily on www.BaseCampMD.com,) and production companies filmed documentaries about our clinic in 2004, 2006, and 2007, which will certainly increase our exposure to potential sponsors (see http://www.indusfilms.com/EverestER.asp and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5336134.stm.) We have been well received and relied upon by more teams in the subsequent seasons. In the past 5 years we have built on our experience and success; as more climbing teams contract with our clinic to provide all of their medical care, we are provided budget stability and we can finally balance our books. As more teams support our clinic (leaving their private non-climbing physicians at home) we will no doubt see even greater numbers of patients, enabling us to support our mission; we are fast becoming a permanent fixture for spring climbers at Nepal’s Everest base camp and a fixed support for health care for the Sherpa community.
Developing this passion, combining it with my love for the practice of medicine and with my desire to return something to the Sherpa people who teach me so much about life, has left me personally and professionally fulfilled beyond my wildest dreams. I challenge you to identify your passion, combine it with your gifts, and use the combination to serve those less fortunate. Namaste loosely translates to “I recognize the divine within you”…
Namaste!
Luanne Freer, MD
If you would like more information about the clinic, visit the website at www.BaseCampMD.com.
For more information about the HRA-Nepal, www.himalayanrescue.org.
Tax-deductible contributions for our 501C3 nonprofit clinic may be made online at http://www.BaseCampMD.com or sent to:
Himalayan Rescue Association – USA
PO Box 365
Gallatin Gateway, MT 59730 USA
Situations Vacant
We have some exciting new job opportunities on our website, these include: Raleigh International who are in need of Drs, nurses and paramedics for expeditions out to Borneo and India late Jan/Early Feb that run through to the end of April. Or there are volunteers required for healthcare facilities in Nepal. Please visit our situations vacant page – for an opportunity of a lifetime click here.
Staff news
EML MEDIC AND ATD EL HEAD OFF TO NEPAL TO VOLUNTEER FOR FOUR MONTHS
EML Medic and ATD Expedition Leader have headed off to Nepal to volunteer at the Himalayan Rescue Association (HRA) in Manang, Nepal. Leon, an ATD EL, and Kirstie, an EML Doc, will be spending 4 months in a tent at 4000m. The HRA is a voluntary non-profit organisation formed in 1973 with an objective to reduce casualties in the Nepalese Himalayas. One of the most important tasks of the HRA is to try to prevent deaths from Acute Mountain Sickness that confronts foreign trekkers.
We wish Leon and Kirstie a safe trip. For further details on the HRA visit their site here.
BABY NEWS
Dr Mark Read, our EL on our Jungle medicine course, and his wife have added to their brood by their latest arrival baby Madelaine. All doing well.
EML DIRECTOR IN ANTARCTICA
Dr Sean Hudson is currently in Antarctica. He is Chief Medic at the Patriot Hills Camp, the base for all non-scientific and non-military expeditions and visitors to Antarctica and is the only private camp in Antarctica. It can hold up to 60 people at a time and temperatures can dip to-40 oC. Sean will be telling us all about his recent adventures in our next newsletter..
Mountain & Wilderness Medicine World Congress 2007
Drs Sean Hudson and Caroline Knox attended the conference up in Aviemore, Scotland on the 3rd - 7th October.
The Wilderness Medicine Society / International Society of Mountain Medicine World Congress 2007 was recently held in Aviemore – a truly inspirational five days. The list of lecturers included many of the world’s most experienced (and most published) expedition and mountain medics. Topics ranged from high altitude physiology to rabies; resuscitation after avalanche to taking clients with medical problems on commercial expeditions. The British climber Steve Venables, who was the guest speaker on our very first Expedition Medicine UK course opened the conference, along with Paul Auerbach, the author of the weight tome Wilderness Medicine ‘bible’.
It was good to catch up with lots of like-minded people and the spirit of cooperation and sharing of information ran throughout the conference. The informal atmosphere lead to a very lively ceilidh on the last night with full toast to the haggis.
We heard details of the Caudwell Xtreme Everest Expedition from Mike Grocott and others from the team. Many people will have seen footage from the expedition during the BBC programmes a few weeks ago. After five years of planning the team undertook a remarkable amount of validated scientific experimentation including femoral artery blood sampling at a height of above 8400m.
Physiological tests were undertaken on two groups of people – the climbers including summiteers, the majority of whom were medical professionals and 203 trekkers. This second group were all volunteers who trekked in groups from Kathmandu up to Everest Base Camp over an identical time scale. All subjects wrote detailed symptom diaries and testing included VO2 max assessments in 4 laboratories set up along the route. Three further laboratories above base camp tested the climbing group.
The climbing party put 10 of the expedition team and 15 Sherpas on the summit of Everest and all members of the team came home without injury. The teams were involved in several rescues during their time on Everest, several individuals giving up their chances of going higher. These including the hazardous rescue of a young Nepali woman left unconscious above 8000m by her party. She was stretchered down back to Base Camp and treated for HACE and severe frostbite by the medical team. She survived with only the loss of one hand and several fingers from the other. The expedition has yielded literally a room full of data that will take many months to process; Caudwell Xtreme Everest will be up there with the Silver Hut Expedition in pushing forward the understanding of the body’s mechanisms for coping with hypoxia.
There were too many excellent lectures to go through individually, but it was particularly good to hear Luanne Freer, our most recent guest speaker on the Expedition Medicine UK course, Chris Imray who is regarded as the possibly Britain’s most experienced advisor on frostbite and David Warrell, who was his usual entertaining self. It was also great to see some familiar faces of medics who have been through one of our courses. I came home inspired to do more. There is so much world out there, let's make the most of it.
Dr Caroline Knox!
Join Across the Divide on a fundraising challenge
Open charity challenges are designed so you can raise money for a charity of your choice - it could be your local hospice or a major cancer charity. ATD have been delighted at the response to their new open events for 2007/2008. The dog sledding, China and Kilimanjaro challenges are selling out fast but they still have places left on the Sahara, Peru, Ladakh and Everest challenge events - so book now to avoid disappointment later. Find out more about Across the Divide here.
For further information email us at events@acrossthedivide.com.
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