Lincs and Notts Air Ambulance doctor shortlisted for National Award
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Dr Mike Hughes, 34, is different to other air ambulance doctors in that he comes from a surgical background, something that isn’t often seen in the helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS), a world which is largely populated with doctors from anaesthesia and emergency medicine.
But it’s his set of skills that has brought a different perspective to the work of the crews on board the helicopter.
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Hide AdDoctor Adam Chesters, LNAA’s deputy medical director, said: “Almost immediately after being signed off in the service, Mike attended a series of difficult cases, treating some of the sickest patients attended by the service in this time.
"Using his surgical expertise, he was able to help deliver the very highest quality of care to the patient.”
Mike joined LNAA in February 2022 and has been called out to 176 incidents in that time. He has dealt with some of the most challenging shifts over the summer and being a surgeon rather than an anaesthetist has meant he has carried out some medical interventions using a skill set that the other doctors do not have. Incidents include 36 road traffic incidents, 23 cardiac arrests and 19 incidents of self-harm.
When he attended a patient who had been stabbed in the neck, rather than apply direct pressure to the bleeding wound, Mike has the skills to be able to dissect down and tie off the bleeding vessels using forceps before transferring the patient to the nearest Major Trauma Centre with the forceps in situ. This technique is a better way of stopping the bleeding and it’s not in the skillset of any other doctors at LNAA and in very few across the air ambulance community.
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Hide AdMike also recently passed the Fellowship of the College of Royal Surgeons examination in Major Trauma Surgery, he is the first person to ever sit the exam and so the first to pass it.
The awards ceremony will be held at Edgbaston Stadium, Birmingham on November 14.