Essex & Herts Air Ambulance Kicks Off Summer Research Programme

Donate

Donate to help save lives

As a charity we rely on your generosity to keep us flying, please donate whatever you can today. Every penny raised really does help us to reach people in their moment of need. Thank you.

Donate

Essex & Herts Air Ambulance first ever Summer Research Programme kicked off in earnest this week, with nine students joining the team for a 6-week programme led by Dr Stephen Tatlow through its Centre for Excellence, which invests in research, innovation and education to advance emergency pre-hospital care and improve patient outcomes.

The successful students were chosen from over 30 applicants and will get the chance to work alongside the air ambulance’s high-performing team of pre-hospital clinicians and to actively contribute to research to tackle the real-world problems facing the crews every day.

The students are all undergraduate or postgraduate students studying medicine, paramedic science or a related subject.

Training will be provided to help students develop essential research skills, understand more about pre-hospital emergency medicine (PHEM) and helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS), and learn from other experienced researchers.

Each student will contribute to a project from Essex & Herts Air Ambulance’s existing portfolio of research which assesses the adoption of new interventions and technologies for critical care, the value of new approaches to clinical education, and the impact of the Air Ambulance’s clinical service.

Kathryn Cesario is currently a postgraduate paramedic student at Nottingham Trent University and will finish her training at the end of the year. She said:

“This was too good an opportunity to miss. In my placements, I’ve been lucky enough to be on scene when HEMs teams arrived and been blown away by how they work to co-ordinate the scene and bring the hospital to the patient. What I’m really interested is the fact that the work doesn’t stop there for Essex & Herts Air Ambulance – there is so much investment in improving outcomes for patients – from educating communities in CPR to exploring meaningful innovations. I’m really excited to play my part in this wider research”.

Other students include Chiara Passirani, who started her career in emergency medicine in the Emergency Department as a Healthcare Assistant and is also due to complete her paramedic science degree this year, and Asqlan Pirzada, an engineer turned final-year medical student with experience in the London Ambulance Service as an emergency responder and dispatcher.

Asqlan Pirzada said:

“I can’t wait to see the other side of my control room experience. My engineering background means I like finding solutions to complex problems and I’m excited to work with the team to explore how we can improve patient outcomes on scene with even the smallest changes to how we do things or the equipment we use”.

Dr Stephen Tatlow, Research & Scholarship Co-ordinator at Essex & Herts Air Ambulance, said,

“We’re so excited to be welcoming these students who each bring unique perspectives and experience to our research. We are constantly looking at ways to improve our service to provide the best level of care when people need it most. The research projects these students will support will help to address key challenges within pre-hospital medicine and contribute to improving the care that can be delivered.”

The programme will run from July 6th to August 14th at the North Weald airbase.