Photo courtesy of Eric LinderWith a background that includes everything from military search and rescue to medical missions abroad, former Remote Medical student Eric Linder knows remote medicine.

“I started out in the military doing search and rescue for pilots downed behind enemy lines.” The military certified Eric as a combat flight paramedic and, after two years of full-time service during the Lebanon War, he is now in his eleventh year as a reservist for the Israeli military.

In 1997, Eric joined the Israeli military as part of a pararescue unit. “It’s a combat search and rescue unit. We did all the austere rescues. Anything from civilians hiking — accidents, extractions — to military rescues. It’s about as remote as you can actually get.”

A few years later Eric returned to the United States but continued working in tactical medicine. Eric now works in the private sector as a safety, security, and medical officer. “In my job I’m teaching wilderness medicine all the time. If there is a trip to India, I research everything about it and then I brief the participants and periodically accompany them .”

Eric's return to the United States also marked his venture into volunteerism. “About two years ago, I went back to Israel and started volunteering for Magen David Adom, the national mobile intensive care service.” Eric now regularly volunteers for weeks at a time and he said his employer was very supportive of the time he devoted to his medical missions. In October he will travel to Uganda as part of a surgical mission. 

Eric expanded his medical knowledge by taking Remote Medical's Remote Medicine for the Advanced Provider course. He followed that with a transition course affiliated from the University of Nebraska & Belize Institute of Tropical Medicine, designed for remote medical practitioners. The course ended in March with a month long residency in Belize. “I spent my first week working with a group called Tejas Missions traveling among jungle villages.” Many of his patients had never seen a doctor before. Eric concluded his final weeks treating patients in the capital's main hospital. Eric is now currently working on his fellowship for the Academy of Wilderness Medicine.

“I chose remote medicine because I like the challenge it offers. It’s about solving problems, like using a tuning fork to diagnose a fracture because you don’t have an x-ray machine.”

Remote Medicine for the Advanced Provider is exactly that. The course helps graduates like Eric make the best choices when the hospital isn’t an option.

Look for more Remote Medical International student profiles on the blog.

This week the focus is on our students. We're starting off with former Remote Medical student Will Adams. Read his story below.

Remote Medical alumnus Will Adams has always loved the wilderness, but he didn’t always think wilderness medicine was for him. “Before Remote Medical, I owned a bar. But once I volunteered in New Mexico on a mountain rescue team I saw that all the EMTs and paramedics got to do all the cool stuff.” His friends noticed that Will was pretty into the work and recommended be become an EMT.

Will spent a lot of time outdoors as a kid and thought that working with a wilderness education company would be a great way to blend his love of mountaineering with his interest in wilderness medicine. All the jobs he found required a minimum certification of Wilderness First Responder. When he found Remote Medical, he read about the Wilderness EMT course, determined it was what he was looking for, and signed up.

Will returned to New Mexico after completing his Remote Medical course,. He volunteered with a county fire department to get ambulance time. He discovered that he really enjoyed the work and the remote location really challenged him to use all of his Remote Medical training.

“The hospital is about a forty-five minute drive. We would have to fly some of our patients out. In the spring there were often really high winds and that wasn’t possible. We would have to transport for a really long time, so I got to see a lot of continuing-care.”

After working in New Mexico, Will decided that the emergency medical field was where he really wanted to work. He wanted to become a paramedic, but, according to Will, “In New Mexico, the EMS academy is really the only one in the state. The wait list was pretty long.” Did that stop him? Of course not. He moved to California.

Will found a job as an EMT in Oakland and is attending paramedic school. “I just finished the didactic portion and I’m going to finish up back in Washington State.”

His journey from bar owner to paramedic is almost complete and it started at Remote Medical International.

If you have a student whose story you feel should be highlighted on the blog, e-mail ecoltrera@remotemedical.com.

This is the second installment in our series of staff profiles. This week, meet Sandy Fraser. He is a remote-site medic and instructor for Remote Medical.

He’s worked as everything from sailboat racing crew member to nightclub bouncer, but, in any case, Remote Medical instructor and remote-site medic Sandy Fraser does not mess around. Sandy is currently the remote-site paramedic and primary medical provider on a seismic research vessel in the Arctic Circle.

“As a remote medic, you really are the eyes, ears, and hands of the physicians,” he said. Remote-site medic work comes with a whole host of challenges, and right now, for Sandy, they range from the common cold to severe hypothermia to worse. “You don’t have the option of just sending a patient to the hospital. You have to think about how far from port you are, how long it might take to turn the boat around.” Lucky for the crew, Sandy is no stranger to difficult situations.

Sandy did not start in the remote medical field. “I joined the Navy because I wanted to fly helicopters,” Sandy told me. It was during flight school down in Pensacola, Florida that the Navy discovered he could swim. He swam well enough that the Navy moved him out of flight school and gave him a job as a Combat Search and Rescue Swimmer. “Those guys in the movie ‘Top Gun’ that jump out of helicopters to save Maverick? That was pretty much my job,” joked Sandy. After his first tour with the Navy, Sandy worked as a Rope Rescue instructor in Virginia for a rescue squad before again changing careers.

Despite spending time aboard a sailboat in the Caribbean, the soldier in Sandy brought him back to the front lines. In the mid 1990’s Sandy worked in Bosnia as a protection specialist for a team of doctors. “I taught military-style first-aid to anyone that was interested.” No small feat, given that Sandy had to use whatever local materials he could find in a country decimated by civil war.

Sandy also worked in Iraq several times, once for the Navy and later as a soldier for hire. After suffering an injury the last time, Sandy promised his wife to find safer work. “When Remote Medical was looking for instructors a short time later, I jumped at the chance and have never looked back.”

When he isn’t teaching or working as a remote-site paramedic, Sandy is home on his farm. He enjoys shooting, hiking, boating, diving, and caving.

Check out Sandy and the rest of the Remote Medical staff on our staff page. Also, be sure to check out the new pictures on our facebook page, courtesy of Sandy!.