World Extreme Medicine Conference and Expo

I was lucky enough to attend the inaugural World Extreme Medicine Conference and Expo, held at the Royal Society of Medicine in London from the 15th to the 18th April this year. The four day conference brought together experts from around the globe and interested parties from a range of backgrounds to talk about the diverse and eclectic fields that interact when medicine is practised in a remote or extreme setting.

The three main themes of cutting edge pre-hospital medicine, remote environment healthcare and disaster relief work were brought to life by the speakers, with many of the presenters having been involved in events and programmes that the rest of us may have seen on television.

Attending this conference as a paramedic was somewhat intimidating, especially as, despite having a keen interest in the subject, I have no remote medicine training or experience to speak of. However, I was very pleased to see a number of other paramedics from several countries across the world in the audience. The Royal Society of Medicine venue was a very pleasant place to spend the long days, especially considering that the packed programme meant that talks often started before nine in the morning and went on till eight in the evening.