By Marcy Phipps, RN, a regular contributor to this blog. Her essay “The Love Song of Frank” was published in the May (2012) issue of AJN.

interior, BK 117 medical helicopter

You’re part of a fixed-wing flight transport team called to pick up a 32-year-old male who’s been involved in a paragliding accident in Puerto Rico. Upon landing, you see an ambulance at the end of the tarmac. As you exit your plane, the ambulance pulls up and the crew opens the back door of the rig. They pull the patient out on a stretcher and hand you a folder of X-rays, saying, “He’s all yours.”

After four days of intensive training in the Air Medical Crew Core Curriculum course, my team was given that scenario as a group assignment on the last day of class. We were given a folder of radiology films and briefed on our patient’s vital signs and our assessment findings. We conducted a quick “field interpretation” of his X-rays and presented our interventions, along with our concerns and specific accommodations for transporting this unstable patient to Florida in a Learjet.

This was no ordinary class. Offered to nurses […]