National Centre for Remote and Rural Medicine Conference 2025

Consultant, Intensive Care, Pre-hospital Emergency Medicine and Anaesthesia. Hon Professor University of Bristol and Queen Mary University London. Gibson Professor RCS Ed. Lt Col RAMC (V), Clinical Director SAR (overseas). Board member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Faculty of Remote Rural and Humanitarian Healthcare. ​

Emergencies in isolated places: right person, right time
This presentation will consider the challenges of performing well in isolated places and, how as leaders, we can select and support the right providers to deliver the best care.

Emergency Medicine Consultant from Dundee Scotland for nearly 30 years. Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and Royal College of Emergency Medicine. Honorary Senior Lecturer University of Dundee. National and International Instructor/Course assessor APLS/ACS/MIMMS/GIC Life support Courses.  Global lead Scottish EM-Malawi projects. Trustee and Board member Scotland Malawi Partnership. Trustee Scotland Malawi Anaesthesia. Member ILCOR First Aid Taskforce. Member ERC First Aid Writing Group Member RCUK and RCUK CARe sub-committee. Chief Medical Adviser to British Red Cross. Member American Red Cross Scientific Advisory Council.

Changing practice in low​/middle resource settings – the Scottish Emergency Medicine-Malawi Projects
The presentation outlines the unique dignified people to people Scotland-Malawi Partnership and the methodology used by the Emergency Medicine-Malawi projects to deliver real change including the challenges of delivery in LMIC settings.

Works as a consultant clinical psychologist specialising in the area of adult mental health with over 30 years of experience of assessing and treating adults with a range of mental health/psychological difficulties. Sharon is passionate about training people to become self-compassionate given the life changing benefits that can be gained on both a personal and professional basis

The Role of Self-Compassion in Maintaining Healthy Mental Well-Being
An overview of the Compassionate Focussed Therapy Model (CFT) to highlight the role of self-compassion in maintaining healthy mental well-being. Sharon will be talking about the three different types of emotional regulation systems in the brain including the ‘threat and self-protection’, ‘drive and desire’ and ‘compassion and self-soothing’ systems. When people are experiencing mental distress, the ‘threat and self-protection’ system tends to be highly stimulated with the other two systems struggling to regulate it with the ‘compassion and self-soothing’ system typically being under-stimulated. Thus, the key is to learn of the importance of the ‘compassion and self-soothing’ system on the on-going regulation of the ‘threat and self-protection system’, learn ways of stimulating the ‘compassion and self-soothing’ system and indeed of great importance, understand the positive impact on-going stimulation of the ’compassion and self-soothing’ system will have on on-going mental well-being.​

Robin practises a mixture of general practice and rural hospital medicine in New Zealand. Dr Robin enjoys being able to turn their hand to mostly anything that walks or gets carried through the door. Mountains are Robin's ‘happy place’.

Wilderness Medicine – Its Utility in an Uncertain Future
Our healthcare systems are buckling under the frequency and severity of natural disasters. The presentation will show how wilderness education can deliver highly transferable skills not taught in formal settings. ‘Pivoting’ wilderness medical practice away from supporting ‘adventure tourism’, could allow it become part of the climate adaptation and mitigation process.

Dr Best is a GP in rural Australia, and a medical educator with 25 years’ experience, with a focus on GP supervisor education and training. He works for the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM). He enjoys his garden and watching the Ashes cricket. ​ 

Alone in the outback – a rural generalist experience in Australia
The Australian outback is one of the most remote places in the world to work in general practice. The isolation, personally and professionally, can be extreme, and training and maintaining GPs working in these environments offers unique challenges to medical educators.​

Andy lost his only son to suicide without any warning. As a consequence, Andy felt the need to be proactive and instrumental in trying to raise awareness. Hopefully helping to prevent other families and communities losing loved ones by speaking out.​ 

Suicide: The Effects on a Family and Community
Suicide is usually a word that gets swept under the carpet by society. Nothing will ever change regarding the impact of suicide on a family or community until it is brought into modern life language.

Deputy Postgraduate Dean for NHS Education for Scotland; Associate Postgraduate Dean for GMC Rural and Remote Health Credential; Consultant Physician Aberdeen Royal Infirmary; Royal Society of Edinburgh Young Academy member.

Remote and Rural Healthcare
This is presentation is about supporting and valuing practitioners through recognition, professional development, connection and spotlighting

​​​​James Sen is a Consultant Anaesthetist & Intensivist at Leeds General Infirmary where he is the lead for ultrasound use and trauma across adult critical care. He also works prehospital for The Air Ambulance Service and Yorkshire Air Ambulance where he is the lead for ultrasound use across their platforms. He has completed a MSc in medical ultrasound and is currently completing the European Diploma in Echocardiography.​ 

Prehospital Ultrasound
Advances in technology and the portability of Ultrasound devices has now made them commonplace within air ambulance services across the world. Whilst there is evidence to say that ultrasound has high levels of diagnostic accuracy in a hospital setting, the scarce evidence of the use of prehospital ultrasound would suggest that this is not replicated in this setting. Challenges due to environmental factors along with a lack of clearly defined training pathways may be the barrier to this. During this talk, James will provide an overview of the use of prehospital ultrasound: its varied uses before hospital, the benefits and the evidence behind it.​

With 30 years of pre-hospital and in hospital experience, a Paramedic by background, Adam has worked across a range of medicine from urgent and unscheduled care to where his passion lies in critical care. Adam is currently Clinical Operations Manager and HEMS Critical Care Paramedic for Air Ambulance Charity Kent Surrey Sussex.​ 

Patient and Practitioner – learning from my own experience​
An experienced pre-hospital practitioner, Adam became a major trauma patient in 2014. The experience has given Adam first-hand experience of what it is to be a patient at their most vulnerable. This is Adam's story who hopes to share a few simple lessons.

Professor Stuart Maitland-Knibb, is a former UK armed forces doctor with extensive international experience in some of the world's most extreme environments. He is an internationally respected medical professional, specialising in urgent and unexpected care in hostile environments. In the UK, he works clinically as a consultant for the helicopter emergency medical service, providing critical care to severely ill and injured patients within the NHS. His educational work focuses on ensuring that patients receive the best possible care regardless of their location or circumstances by training and education to all involved. As director of the National Centre for Remote and Rural Medicine, his research is focused on the disparity of healthcare and the subsequent outcomes that are created by location in the UK. 

ABD (Acute Behavioural Disturbances)
ABD is becoming the new term on the block. The answer to the unruly non-compliant patient / person. Requests from police, ambulance and other agencies for chemical restraint.

But what is it and is there any place for chemical restrain?

I am Professor Emeritus of International Emergency Medicine at the University of Manchester, the founder of UK-Med, an International NGO, and a member of the Executive Committee of the Faculty of Remote Rural and Humanitarian Healthcare at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

Presentation:

​​”How do you cope?” Lessons drawn from forty years of managing stress before, during, and after humanitarian deployments to wars, disease, and disasters.​

By reference to the many humanitarian emergencies that I have responded to over many years I will draw out what did and didn’t help identify, mitigate, and relieve stress in me and my team.

Jeremy is a Consultant in Anaesthetics and Critical Care at Chesterfield Royal Hospital and Director of the Centre for Mountain Medicine here. Alongside his research interests, Jeremy oversees the our MSc Mountain Medicine programme​.

Presentation:

​​Life and Death on Mount Everest​

In this talk we will look at the barriers preventing a “good death” in the remote and rural environment. Using examples from his work as a mountaineer and consultant in intensive care, Jeremy will describe how this can change and lead to a real difference to patients and those friends and family who survive them.

Dr Heather Bacon is a veterinarian and Dean of the Veterinary School here. She has worked internationally on veterinary education and animal welfare projects for over 15 years and was previously responsible for developing and teaching animal welfare, behaviour and veterinary ethics to veterinary and postgraduate students at the University of Edinburgh, and in developing the Jeanne Marchig International Centre for Animal Welfare Education as a founding member of the team. Additionally, she works with many charities, veterinary and other organisations to develop veterinary educational initiatives around the world, with a focus on improving the welfare of dogs, cats and captive and free-ranging wildlife. Heather’s research interests include changing human behaviour to improve the welfare of animals and supporting the development of effective veterinary education.​

Presentation:

​​Animal behaviour – warning signs for first responders​

​​First responders may face a variety of challenges when faced with animals whilst responding to a call. This presentation, focussing primarily on canine behaviour will outline key warning signs and mitigations to help maintain safe human-animal interactions.​

Doctor Daniel Pellegrini is a PhD candidate with the Adelaide Rural Clinical School. He has been involved in rural medical education since 2022 and has worked in a wide variety of rural locations in South Australia since 2018. Professor Lucie Walters, PhD is Director of the Adelaide Rural Clinical School. She has extensive experience in rural medical education leadership; has worked as a rural generalist since 1993 and is a past President of ACRRM.

Presentation:

​​Clinical courage and how rural generalists make decisions about best place of care​

​​Clinical courage describes the lived experience of rural generalists; involves functioning in the health context and responsiveness to community. To facilitate knowledge transfer, we must make explicit our therapeutic reasoning processes, including how ‘best place of care’ decisions are made.​

Dr Daniel James is a GP partner and educator based in Bury St. Edmunds He is also a medical officer with the Suffolk Agricultural association and works closely with the local farming community to raise​ the profile of rural health issues. Dr Jordan Tsigarides is a Rheumatologist, Doctoral Researcher (PhD in Virtual Reality), and Chief Medical Officer for a VR Education Company (Revolve Labs). He has 8 years of experience creating, researching and disseminating VR educational and therapeutic interventions in healthcare

Presentation:

​​Action: Farm Suicide – Addressing Suicide risk in the farming community. A VR educational project.​

​​Agricultural workers experience a considerably higher suicide risk than the background population. This workshop details an innovative educational project using virtual reality technology to raise awareness in healthcare workers and the farming community.​