SMACC GOLD is coming…

Well we’re gearing up for SMACC GOLD – the seminal critical care conference to be held on the Gold Coast Mar 19-21 2014.

Rumour has it that I will be engaging in a debate with the esteemed Dr Minh le Cong of RFDS QLD and the truly superb ‘prehospital & retrieval medicine‘ blog in a debate on the value or otherwise of checklists in airway management…

Meanwhile Dr Casey Parker of BroomeDocs will be holding forth on his pet topic of error in medicine – which promises to be a truly dazzling talk. Minh and Casey will also chair sessions with well-known local and international luminaries. It’s going to be epic.

However this is not a conference just for intensivists. Some of the most engaging and though-provoking discussions after SMACC2013 came from paramedics, from nurses, from retrievalists, from ED doctors and of course rural doctors.

I’m a firm believer in the maxim that ‘critical illness does not respect geography’. As such rural doctors are the frontline for critical illness in the bush. As such, if you are a rural clinician (of whatever ilk) and serious about delivering ‘quality care, out there’, then you need to come to SMACC GOLD. With no back up and the remit of having to deal with pretty much whatever comes through the door, techniques such as NODESAT, ultrasound, DSI and so on can give us the edge.

You may already be excellent – but you can be better, trust me on this.

So rural clinicians – doctors, nurses, paramedics – come along to SMACC GOLD.

It’s going to be crazy good…