Rural doctors invariably have responsibilities not just for Primary Care (whether through running their own private practice clinics or as a salaried clinic member), but also for dealing with after hours emergencies.
Which means that there is no point sending a patient up to the local Hospital – as the doctor they see will be the same rural doctor who referred them!
Emergency medicine is inherently complex – it often requires simultaneous assessment and treatment, patients can be critically unwell – and in the bush there may be a long wait for backup.
Traditionally rural doctors have classified emergency patients as ‘sick, crook and bloody crook’ which runs the gamut from a mild headache through to a polytrauma or multi-organ failure sepsis.
FOAMed helps rural doctors keep up to speed with current thinking in EM.
