Mark Hannaford - Founder and CEO of World Extreme Medicine

Last year, the Red Square Medical team descended on the World Extreme Medicine (WEM) conference for the very first time. We’d been aware of this unique organisation for many years, but just not had the chance to get involved. 

Liz was involved in a panel discussion and spoke at the conference, and we came away literally buzzing with enthusiasm - our first impressions were that WEM is a place with no ego’s, where everyone wants to learn, and is willing to share. We met some of the most fascinating people ever and can’t wait to go back this year.

But what about the person who started it all…

We spoke to Mark Hannaford, founder of World Extreme Medicine and its far reaching impact. Here’s what he had to say.

I’ve been involved in expeditions, working in low resource environments and extreme medicine for the past three decades! My family was made up of generations of seafarers from Cornwall although I was brought up variously in Devon, Antigua in the Caribbean and the Middle East; reflecting my father’s job as a Master Mariner. My father was at one time the youngest captain aboard the UK’s largest registered vessel, and my grandfather was Harbour Master for Malta and the first in that role in Plymouth at the start of Queen Elizabeth’s reign.
 
I wear a number of hats but primarily I am the founder and CEO of World Extreme Medicine, and the annual WEM Conference. I also founded the MSc in Extreme Medicine at the University of Exeter and Graduate Certificate program at Bouvré College of Health Sciences, Northeastern University, Boston. 

More recently I am the co-founder, Medics4Ukraine, along with Advanced Paramedic Luca Alfatti. This operation has delivered over £3.25 million worth of trauma supplies and Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) training to the embattled medical community in Ukraine. This has seen us visit Ukraine itself on a number of occasions. Until very recently I was also a volunteer Coastal Rescue Officer with HM Coastguard.


My original degree at Middlesex University was in Geography and Geomorphology, but I always wanted to be involved in expeditions from a very early stage and living close to the Dartmoor National Park allowed space for my thirst for adventure.  In my late teens, I was selected for a Raleigh International expedition to Southern Chile & Patagonia, which changed my life and my career trajectory. 

It made me realise that I could earn a living from leading expeditions.  However, my next job was one of the most important in determining my life's journey.


I applied and was accepted into the BT graduate training scheme against thousands of other applicants, which was terrific. I loved the people I worked with, and the training was excellent… but I had an indelible taste for adventure left over from Patagonia.  The BT role taught me that conforming didn't suit me and that I needed a greater sense of personal purpose. At the same time, I entered the UK Reserve Special Forces selection process.


Sitting in my company car in slow-moving traffic, shuffling out of London to head to the Black Mountains in Wales to train, turned out to be a seminal moment.  I had every window open, listening to Queen on the radio, attempting to get the outside inside.  I realised I was doing this every weekend, escaping the built world for the natural one, and concluded I should make the natural world my workplace!


A few weeks before, I had been offered a job driving RIBs in Kamchatka by an expedition ship company, and I had turned it down.  Stuck in the traffic, with those iconic words from Freddie Mercury echoing in my head, 'I want to break free', I rang the company and accepted the role.  


Swapping my suits, company car, and a reliable, well-paid job, I embarked on a journey that would take me around the world several times, on expeditions to every single continent numerous times, and to a career in extreme medicine education.

I spent several years running remote boat operations, initially for Noble Caledonia. Then extensively for Lindblad - National Geographic Expeditions, based out of New York and travelling to Indonesia, the Seychelles, Madagascar, Antarctica, Arctic and around the British Isles, plus mountain guiding and expedition leading in Morocco, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, and various other places. I was then asked to set up an expedition company, and Across the Divide Expeditions (ATD) was born.


ATD was quickly asked by Capital Radio and Mencap if we could organise some charity challenges for them and little did I know what an incredible journey that would take on planning expeditions to locations as diverse as China, Peru, Namibia, Australia, the high Arctic and Madagascar.  ATD organised over seventy expeditions a year at its peak, and we facilitated the raising of over £103 million for a wide range of charities, from Cancer Research and Doctors without Borders to the Scott Polar Institute and Battersea Dogs Home!  If you are UK-based you will have seen ATD on TV in various guises without realising. We ran well recognised events such as the Children in Need Rickshaw Challenge which raised over £25 million all by itself!


One of ATD's founding tenets was that every expedition would have an experienced medic accompany them. To my knowledge, we were the first company in the world to actually pay our medics, equip them with a peer-reviewed medical kit, and provide an internal multi-day training program to equip them for the rigours of expedition medicine. 


The training program proved so successful that our medical team suggested we made a version that was publicly accessible to other medical professionals. When we did, to our surprise, seventy medical professionals turned up, and the 'Expedition and Wilderness Medicine' company was born. I focused on building a medical education platform as the time was right to reduce ATD down to spend more time with my young family. 

We wanted to contribute to and build a community of practice, enable easier access, and break down the silos between medical disciplines approaching expedition and wilderness medicine with a collaborative mindset. So, we made a deliberate decision not to trademark our name, and it's heartening to see books, courses, and articles using this now well-established phrase.


You may ask why we changed the name to World Extreme Medicine – now a B-Corp accredited company? I noticed that our courses, expeditions, and conferences were attracting medics from all over the world and, interestingly, across the gamut of specialities: military medicine, paramedicine, humanitarian medicine, pre-hospital care, sports, disaster response, midwifery and aerospace medicine, to name just a few.  I thought maybe we could build a community where professionals could share their experiences, learn from others, generate new research and create opportunities for each other; this epiphany gave rise to my new mission!

It might surprise you to hear that my background really is non-clinical! After my original degree I went on to establish the International Diploma/MSc program at Exeter University. A love of adventure, the constant need for refreshing mental and physical challenges and a deep-seated desire to help people have driven this choice of career. I now teach on the Principles of Aerospace and Space Medicine course at UMTB in Texas and helped to found the Graduate Certificate program at Bourvé College of Health Sciences at Northeastern University in Boston. I feel privileged to do a job I would otherwise do for pleasure and the fact that I get to help people, to educate and open people’s minds to new possibilities is immense and endlessly rewarding. 


That said, quirkily, I was also one of the very first Community Responders in the UK. This scheme, which is now national, was started in my area and I supported its establishment by volunteering my time and experience.  I also underwent extensive technical and medical training  as a Coastal Rescue Officer for my local Coastguard Team.


I have come across quite a few medical emergencies around the world. From broken legs in the mountains of Kazakhstan, a mental collapse in the Namib Desert, an overnight stabbing in Havana (with amazing support from the duty officer at the embassy there), to CPR in Antarctica.  


My time as a coastguard saw lots of responding on cold winter nights to people with mental health problems and for this, I only have sympathy with their issues.  If life has taught me nothing else, it's that there is a surprisingly thin and fragile line between mental health and distress, safety and insecurity.


In a slightly surreal twist of fate, after delivering a speech in Dubai about my work I was invited by the Department of Trade under their ‘exceptional talent’ program to take up the opportunity to live in the UAE on a Golden Visa. I took up this invitation last year and consequently I’m based in Abu Dhabi for now. 


One of the key benefits of my day job is the constant refresher in remote medicine in all its guises and I am attracted by how different disciplines interconnect. As a hangover from my reserve special forces training, the value of cross training can’t be underestimated. This clearly gives you additional skills but also, to my mind, and just as importantly, it produces an empathy for other people’s roles; their needs and stressors – these are essential insights in a leadership role.

  

There really isn’t a typical day which is why I feel so lucky to do what I do. I haven’t yet quite mastered the skill of offloading some of the more mundane tasks of running a world leading medical training company though! One minute I can be taking a call from a faculty member aboard the International Space Station! Yes, this has happened on a number of occasions and it never pales! I have learnt that calls originating from Houston are definitely not spam calls to be ignored!! 


I feel my role is to enable and signpost pathways for early-stage career medics, so a proportion of my time is taken up with writing conference presentations. I try to allocate at least 10% of my time to this but it’s often more.  

Ukraine, and Medics4Ukraine operations over there can variously take up a huge amount of time through working with Luca to organise convoys and training teams, monitoring in-country teams, and staying abreast of the security situation there. Making connections is part of my great joy and reaching out to people doing fascinating work is something that I find really rewarding.

 

Generating new ideas is not essential but it's an incredibly rewarding part of my role. I find spending time outdoors or working out to be vital in letting my mind unwind and flow, making connections that would otherwise not form if I was tied to a laptop. So, creating space during the day is important to me and I try to limit the amount of screen time.

 

Expeditions and remote travel have always featured massively in my life so planning my next trip, ideally with my grown-up kids, always forms a part of everyday life!

 

If I’m honest, I’m not good at detail, so I have to work hard to apply myself.  I am a firm believer in collaborative working, and competition is good as it encourages innovation. So I find it frustrating to see empire building from organisations, and people building their own protective silos. Fortunately, I feel we are sufficiently well established now to counter any isolationist thinking in our field.

 

I love the constant variety.  The creativity of pushing at the boundaries of medicine, working with incredible medical professionals from across the world and playing our part of making medicine in low resource areas better. 


My work is endlessly engrossing and rewarding and attending events such as the WEM Conference are like being plugged-into-the-mains of inspiration, there is such positive energy in gathering so many incredible people together. The story is focused on who is speaking on the various stages but in truth the stories in the audience are equally engrossing!  I get such a kick out of having the honour to do what I do.

 

If I had to give some advice, I’d say ‘just do it!’ 


I have four mantras or quotes that I repeat to myself when I am feeling challenged, dispirited or frustrated.

 

Mandela:  ‘Everything seems impossible, until it is done’


Margaret Mead: ‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it's the only thing that ever has."

 

In my head when presented by pontification ‘Don’t give me rivers, give me bridges’.

 

And I love this quote from Kennedy’s speech at Rice University unveiling his Space ambitions


‘We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people’

 

In contrast, the best advice that I’ve ever received is to ‘Do more. Talk less!’

 

Looking forward, I’ll undoubtedly be planning for the next expedition or time with my family, and I keep my skills up to date by being passionate about what I do.

 

Finally, from my time as a remote and rescue boat operator, the one piece of kit I’d always recommend at sea is a knife to cut people free of rigging, lines and prevent the need for any medical intervention!

We hope you’ve enjoyed this guest blog, we certainly enjoyed putting it together with Mark.


If you’d like more information about WEM, please head over to www.worldextrememedicine.com.


We can highly recommend signing up for newsletters and if you can make it to the conference in November, we hope to see you there!


You can also connect with Mark via his Linkedin profile - www.linkedin.com/in/profmarkhannaford

The Recovery Position - an STCW refresh

by Rachel Smith • 18 December 2024
Welcome to our December blog, which is all about the recovery position and how to manage an unconscious casualty who is breathing normally. Unconsciousness is a medical emergency as the person is very vulnerable and may not be able to manage their own airway effectively. We also need to think about the cause of unconsciousness. Is it a simple fainting episode due to illness? Is it a massive hemorrhage causing hypovolemic shock? Or is it due to some kind of external factor or injury? This blog looks at how to manage an unconscious casualty. So, if we have a casualty who is unconscious, but who is breathing normally for themselves, and we’re not suspecting a serious injury, the recovery position is the best position to use while monitoring them. The recovery position keeps their airway open and makes sure that vomit or liquid won’t cause them to choke.

Revisiting our guest blogs

by Rachel Smith • 11 December 2024
All the guest blogs! When we started adding blogs to our website back in early 2021, we did a little feature on each of our instructors of the time. They’re quite a fascinating bunch and the series proved quite popular amongst our followers. In addition to our amazing instructors, we work with some utterly incredible human beings all over the world, and the idea of sharing their stories grew and developed into what eventually became a monthly guest blog. It’s been interesting to find out more about how medical care at sea or in remote locations features in their work, and to discover a few fun facts along the way. This month, we thought that it might be a fun idea to give you a chance to go back into the archives and review all the guest blogs over the last few years! Maybe even let us know which your favourite one is?

Cayman Maritime Report 2023

by Rachel Smith • 27 November 2024
We’ve taken a look at the 2023 Casualty Summary Report from the Maritime Authority of the Cayman Islands (MACI) to see what kind of incidents and trends their data shows us, even with relatively small data sets, and how this may be able to transfer to our own risk assessments and actual practice. You can find the report here: Cayman Maritime Report 2023 The first thing we noted was the authors note that the data is split out into incidents. This means that one incident may include a number of events. So a collision and any resulting injury is one incident, but is reported as two events, or more, if more than one person is injured. It made us wonder whether this method of reporting by an authority represents how incidents are reported onboard and whether it should be a consideration? Of course, for any set of statistics presented at the moment, we also have to consider the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact this has on trends including that period. While essential shipping continued, the cruise and superyacht sectors reduced activity and staffing, often to a skeleton crew while anchored somewhere. So this will be reflected in the historic data sets that we analyse from 2019 to 2021 and may not accurately reflect increases and decreases during and since then. In some situations, we may need to look further back for accurate data. We also need to consider whether increases in incidents and events is also down to increased reporting - suggesting an improvement in the awareness of reporting requirements and greater engagement from the industry and individual sectors - this can only be a good development. Since 2020, the type of injury has been recorded in 8 different categories, with hand and foot injuries topping the leaderboard, closely followed by head, body, and back injuries. So if you were looking to run drills, or practise medical skills, these would be the key areas to cover. Only one death was an occupational accident, and is being investigated here: MAIB Investigations (search for case #9229607). It relates to a fall down a ventilation shaft on a bulk carrier in a Greek shipyard. The full report was still pending at the time of writing. Merchant ships are heavily regulated by a number of authorities, and the requirements for personal protective equipment and safe systems of work are enforced and applied to reduce accidents and incidents onboard. This has led to a lower reporting of incidents than in the commercial yacht sector. Could there be room for improvement here in this area? We certainly think so. Many of the hand and foot injuries reported can be career ending or life changing, but are preventable. Follow up has shown that there is a link here with injuries being sustained when inappropriate or no PPE was used. The supply and use of appropriate PPE is mandatory on vessels subject to the MLC and it’s worth remembering that some PPE can be produced in styles and designs compatible with the aesthetics of a yacht if required! On a much wider scale, a lack of transparency and standardisation globally can affect the collection of data and the issue of under reporting. While the MACI figures may be accurate, we need other accurate figures to compare them to, in order to build a bigger picture across the world as we have in aviation. From December 2024, the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) will be enforcing an amendment so that seafarer deaths will be recorded and reported annually. The MACI and Cayman Islands Shipping Registry produces a number of safety flyers that are publicly available HERE that may be useful. In summary, analysing data can sometimes result in more questions than answers. But even this can lead to interesting and important developments that result in improved safety and reduced incidents and accidents onboard. Key points to take from this report are: Use the correct PPE for the task. Employ approved systems of work and risk assessments for the task. Reporting is key for safety in the future of our industry. Enjoy a night ashore, but don’t over do the cocktails! As always, if you’d like any input on medical training onboard or ashore, or drills that you can run yourselves, please just get in touch. References: https://www.lloydslist.com/LL1145359/Increase-in-incidents-of-deaths-at-sea

James Griffiths - Guest Blog

by Rachel Smith • 6 November 2024
Welcome to our latest guest blog where we’ve been chatting to James Griffiths, General Manager of Ocean Operations for Scenic Group and finding out more about what happens behind the scenes in order to keep a fleet of luxury expedition ships running. Here’s what James told us… As General Manager of Ocean Operations, I’m responsible for the operations of our fleet which includes four ships in service with around 850 colleagues. I currently live in Mumbles, near Swansea in the UK, but due to the nature of my work I spend a significant amount of time living in Croatia. Prior to this role, I spent many years working at sea and worked up through the ranks to Captain and over the last 15 years, my main focus has been on polar expedition travel. I hold a master mariner certificate of competency in addition to a degree in engineering and a post graduate diploma in law. Part of my job is to work with our medical service provider (Red Square Medical) to ensure that our ships are offering medical services that are appropriate for their deployment, and this can often be to some of the most extreme and remote locations around the world. It’s extremely varied, though during the COVID-19 pandemic, I came ashore when our operations paused for a significant period of time. I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to lead the restart of our Ocean Operations, which included setting up everything from a company to manage the ships, to selecting our crewing, medical, helicopter and submarine partners and providers, amongst many other things. Our areas of operation, and the nature of our cruises (expedition), plus having aircraft and submersibles onboard some, do mean additional elements involved in the management of these ships. You could say that this current position is more of a happy coincidence than one that I actually planned for! In some ways this is a great positive - I do think it’s possible to plan a little too much and then be disappointed if things don’t go quite the way you had imagined. But there’s no danger of that here!

Paramedic on tour - Simon Lawton heads to Mexico

by Rachel Smith • 3 October 2024
Back in February 2022, we brought you one of our very first guest blogs from Simon Lawton, a Paramedic who has swapped out his ambulance for a Superyacht! You can read the original blog here: https://www.redsquaremedical.com/superyacht-paramedic-a-guest-blog-from-simon-lawton Over the last 2+ years, we’ve followed Simon’s career, and some of you may even recognise him as he does put a Red Square Medical instructor hat on from time to time. But, as for all healthcare professionals, Simon has to keep his skills up to date. So, we asked him to tell us a bit more about how he juggles this along with a rota onboard. Here’s what he told us… I’m originally from Stoke-on-Trent in the UK and trained as a HCPC registered Paramedic. I’ve spent almost 5 years working at sea now, with almost continuous employment on three different vessels, after leaving the ambulance service in 2019. My first role was as a Paramedic/Deck hand on Superyachts, and I now work as a Medical Officer on a maritime vessel. Even before I applied to become a Paramedic, I intended to complete my studies to help find employment in a remote or offshore environment. I had always been attracted to the idea of being able to travel the world while earning a salary. Working at sea has meant that I have travelled extensively, earnt a higher salary, and have a better work/rest balance than would be possible in a role on land. Note: At the time of writing, a qualified Paramedic’s starting pay in the UK was £28,407 and Simon’s old rota was 2 days, 2 nights (all 12 hours) and 4 days off with very inflexible annual leave. This year I decided to carry out some continual professional development (CPD) at a hospital in Mexico, to keep my skills up to date. I was interested in travelling to find out more about how healthcare services are provided outside the UK and Europe. The CPD activity in Mexico allowed me to do exactly that, while caring for and treating a wide variety of patients who had either self-presented in the emergency department, or been conveyed to hospital by ambulance.

Inequalities in CPR on Women

by Rachel Smith • 25 September 2024
Welcome to our September blog, and as we all start (in the UK at least!) to think about adding a few layers for warmth, we’d like to talk about getting naked! Well, to be more specific, getting bra’s off. Fact: Women are dying because bystanders are less likely to carry out CPR on women than men. Research shows that women are 27% less likely to receive CPR than men and if a defibrillator is used, their chance of survival is affected by bra’s being left on. Most of us have never had the chance to train using a female manikin. The #BraOffDefibOn campaign aims to address the inequality in CPR for women and we’re supporting it.

Dr. Will Duffin - Joint Medical Director WEM

by Rachel Smith • 4 September 2024
In August, we brought you a Guest Blog from Mark Hannaford, the founder of World Extreme Medicine. This month, it’s the turn of another of the key WEM faculty members… introducing Dr Will Duffin. Hello everyone, I’m Dr Will Duffin and I’m a GP in Devon in the UK. I’m the Joint Medical Director of World Extreme Medicine (WEM) and the Lead Medic for the US CBS TV show ‘Survivor’ - for Seasons 43, 44, 46 and 48, which is also through WEM. Extreme Medicine is healthcare that is delivered across the full spectrum of remote, austere and challenging environments. This includes high mountains, deep oceans, jungles, deserts, polar, low earth orbit and refugee camps… the list is endless. Being a part of the wider Extreme Medicine community through WEM has been a portal into new worlds of possibility and opportunity in my medical career as an NHS GP. It’s a huge privilege to treat patients in a remote setting. You get to do proper ‘hands on’ medicine that truly tests your clinical skills, risk management and decision making. Even basic techniques and principles done well can transform patient outcomes. That’s the big reward. I graduated from Bristol Medical School in 2008 and completed my GP Training in Cornwall, UK in 2016. In between, I spent 18 months in Australia to gain as much emergency department experience as I could, whilst doing Wilderness Medicine Courses. I landed my first expedition gig 12 years ago when I was post-FY2 (Foundation Years follow on after qualifying as a doctor). I covered a Kilimanjaro Trek after another doctor dropped out at the last minute. Once I had this under my belt, I was able to leverage this experience to get the next trip. So, I soon found myself providing regular medical cover for various commercial and charity sector expeditions. These expeditions have taken me all over the world: Kilimanjaro, the Peruvian Andes, the Himalayas, Northern China, Eastern Europe, Myanmar and Madagascar. One highlight was working as the private doctor for a Luxury Trans-Siberian Train! Though I became frustrated having to constantly wrangle annual leave to go away, so I made the switch to being a freelance (locum) GP, which has given me the flexibility I need. I joined WEM in 2018 after responding to a Facebook Ad for the ‘Survivor’ job. I was invited to a selection weekend in the Peak District, which is when I first met Mark Hannaford WEM founder and CEO and Dr Joe Rowles, WEM’s other Medical Director, and it all went on from there. Early on, I was given the opportunity to lead on the content for the annual World Extreme Medicine Conference and our various podcasts and webinars. Through doing this, I have met a colourful cast of characters; other extreme medics who are as audacious as they are inspirational! We have a lot of fun at the conference every year, learning from one another. https://worldextrememedicine.com/registration/wem-conference-2024 (Note from the RSM team – the conference is highly recommended and well worth a visit!)

Women's Health

by Rachel Smith • 3 July 2024
Women’s health is a huge topic, while it’s true that in the maritime sector women make up just 2% of seafarers at sea, up to 34% of the shore based staff are female. Looking at the bigger picture, women’s health directly affects just under half of our population globally, and indirectly (whether you like it or not!) the other half, we thought it was worth a blog about some of the issues, and the taboo’s, that could be affecting our maritime workforce and the women in our lives. It's common knowledge that women experience huge hormonal changes at puberty and menopause, both of which can have significant physical and mental health impacts. In the UK, there is a growing discussion and openness about peri-menopause (the years before periods stop altogether) and how for some women, this has devastating effects across all aspects of their lives, including work. Of course men experience changes at puberty, but their later life changes are less significant and generally don’t affect their ability to work. In December 2023 the World Health Organisation (WHO) issued a statement to advise that every year, at least 40 million women are likely to experience a long term health problem caused by childbirth. So there’s a good chance that we all know one or more women affected, or if you are female… this could be you. As part of a special series on maternal health, the study showed a high burden of postnatal conditions that persist in the months and years after giving birth. These issues include more than a third of women experiencing pain during intercourse, urinary incontinence (8-31%), anal incontinence (19%), anxiety (9-24%), depression (11-17%), perineal pain (11%), a fear of childbirth (6-15%) and secondary infertility (11%). All in all it doesn’t paint a great picture of life after childbirth for some women. If any of your workers experience these issues, either on or off shore, it could have a significant impact on areas of their working life and it’s something they may be reluctant to open up about. Even before childbirth, we may take it for granted that contraception is available, certainly in the developed world. But in developing countries where sexual violence is not uncommon, contraception is considered lifesaving due to the high level of unsafe abortions carried out. Around 13 million women (and girls) under 20 give birth annually and complications in the pregnancy and birth is a leading cause of death. Consequently abortion is an option, but this carries its own huge risks.

Guest Blog - Wendy Sullivan

by Rachel Smith • 25 June 2024
We just love speaking to and finding out more about the people who inspire us and we guarantee that this month’s blog will not disappoint! We first got in touch with Wendy Sullivan via LinkedIn and thought she seemed like a pretty awesome human. Wendy and her company, Maritime Medical Solutions in Australia, certainly share the same outlook as Red Square Medical. Fast forward a couple of years and we’re now collaborating on a project in Australia and the Pacific Islands. What we’ve learnt along the way is simply fascinating and Wendy has kindly agreed to share her story with us… Here is Wendy’s Guest Blog: I was born in Canada, grew up in Africa and now call Australia my home. I feel lucky to live in paradise where the weather allows us to be on the water year-round. I had to work hard to gain my Australian citizenship and I credit my work in the marine industry with giving me a pathway to stay in Australia permanently. It took years of hard work and uncertainty to gain my residency and is still one of the achievements I am most proud of. I started sailing in Canada and since emigrating to Australia gained my professional and commercial qualifications as a vessel master, marine engine driver, trainer and assessor. I also have a Diploma of Paramedical Science, ship masters medical qualifications, business administration and development and there is still so much more to come.

Safety of Lives at Sea

by Rachel Smith • 17 June 2024
Working at sea can be one of the most rewarding and fulfilling careers. But you can’t gloss over the fact that it can be dangerous. Whether you’re working on a tanker, ploughing up and down the oceans, a Superyacht enjoying a busy season of charters, or any vessel in between; our love/hate relationship buddy Neptune takes no prisoners! The Safety of Lives at Sea (SOLAS) Convention in its successive forms is generally regarded as the most important of all international treaties concerning the safety of merchant and other vessels. The first version was adopted in 1914, in response to the Titanic disaster, and went through several iterations up to 1974. The Convention in force today is generally referred to as SOLAS 1974, as amended. SOLAS regulations cover all areas of safety at sea, including construction, fire prevention and detection, life saving equipment, cargo carriage, navigation, communications and a host of other areas. Regulation 33 of the SOLAS Convention applies to all ships, and places an obligation on Masters to respond to distress calls at sea and proceed ‘with all speed’ to their assistance. Anyone working in the maritime sector, hopes that they are never on the receiving end of this regulation, but we’ve experienced two quite different instances, where the ships we work with have responded and our Medical teams have played an important part in rendering aid.
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