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SOCIETY ISSUE 01 2022
Skiing doctor trains on the slopes An exciting elective in the Scottish Highlands was made possible for medical student Charlie Gregory (S16) with the help of funding from the Dr Donald Dean Medical Award. He describes his experience learning from the Glenshee patrol team
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t the end of February, a friend and I undertook the long drive from Cardiff up to the Isle of Skye for a few days hiking before heading over to the Glenshee Ski Resort, near Braemar in the Cairngorms, to start our elective shadowing the Ski Patrol team. Each day, the chief patroller and four or five other team members start early and take to the mountains to set up the resort and ensure it’s safe for customers to use. This involves checking the lifts and being first down every freshly groomed piste to keep a lookout for hazards, before marking them with poles or chevrons. When fully open, Glenshee has 40km of groomed piste to manage so the team must work quickly and effectively to get the resort open for first lifts at 8:30am. Throughout the day, the teams patrol their sectors of the mountain, communicating by radio and responding
to injured customers. They are taken down the hill to the safety of the treatment room before decisions are made about if further transport is needed and whether by ambulance or helicopter. For the month we were with them, we would be paired with a patroller, shadowing their work, learning their techniques, and assisting to treat customers on and off the hill. Common injuries ranged from broken wrists, collar bones and arms, dislocated shoulders, head injuries, lacerations from skis and twisted knees. A call would begin with either the team spotting an injury or us being informed by lift staff or a member of the public. We would head via the quickest lift to the site of the incident, often taking a sled with us. Once with a patient, we would first make the scene safe, crossing our skis above the site before moving down to assess any injuries.
