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Renal tract trauma

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Thursday, August 10, 2017, In : Clinical topics 

You've picked up a competitor from the track following a collision that occurred on the exit of a high speed turn. He's now at the medical centre and has begun to complain of flank pain. He's certainly pretty tender over his right lower ribs posteriorly and on further examinations there's a little bit of blood where wee usually comes out.

Eeek! He might have blunt renal tract trauma.

Luckily, you've just been to this website and read through the material below. Having taken care of the core res...

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ICMS AGM 2016 - Intro and Day 1

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Friday, February 24, 2017, In : Conferences, courses & events 

This conference was great. It was what a motorsport conference covering safety, medical and rescue issues should be. No topic was off limits, no presenter was protected from being challenged (and most audience challenges stuck to the rules of engagement), invited speakers were from a broad range of backgrounds (gender, profession, motorsport category and geography) and most appealing of all, there was a general air of desire to promote and progress improved understanding and practice.


(I don't...

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FIA Institute CMO Seminar - Day 2

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Friday, January 6, 2017, In : Conferences, courses & events 

The Christmas and New Year holidays are over and having spent some enjoyable time with the family poncing about, it's time to get back to work. Here is my summary of Day 2 of the FIA Institute Medicine in Motorsport CMO seminar held as part of the FIA AGA in Vienna at the beginning of December.

The first half of the day was composed of an opening speech by Jean Todt (which I missed) and four workshops. After lunch there were five free papers presented followed by the closing speech. After a so...

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FIA Institute CMO Seminar 2016 - Day 1

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Wednesday, December 14, 2016, In : Conferences, courses & events 


Two weeks ago I was sitting in an apartment in the middle of the Vienna Naschmarkt, having flown in at 6am that morning from Australia to attend the biennial FIA Institute Medicine in Motorsport Chief Medical Officer's seminar. Traditionally, while there are a handful of exceptions, this is a fairly passive affair consisting of a series of talks and a couple of fairly didactic workshops (SMACC it is not).

Two years ago a small bonfire was lit when Dr Sean Petherbridge (CMO for the Abu Dhabi F...


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Medicine in Motorsport App

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Wednesday, October 21, 2015, In : Notifications 
The FIA publication, "Medicine in Motorsport", was published in January 2011. It was intended as a primer for all things that related to providing medical care at (FIA-sanctioned) motorsport events; from how the various roles and organisations fit togther to explanations of race car safety structures to resuscitation topics, all in the context of a motorsport environment. Edited by Dr Gary Hartstein, it was released in digital format through Amazon and could be read on Kindle devices or as a ...

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A medical publication from the FIA Institute (and a survey)

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Friday, September 4, 2015, In : Notifications 
It's been an interesting and busy few months and I'll get into all that has been happening in due course. But let's start off with this.

The FIA (Federation International d'Automobile), like any organisation that sets itself up as the prime authority in a given field, cops a fair bit of criticism for many things. That said, within and around the organisation there are plenty of smart, progressive individuals. (I say "around" because not everyone who works with the FIA is necessarily an FIA em...

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Motorsport Safety Reseach Scholarship

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Thursday, April 23, 2015, In : Notifications 


Well, this is a bit new. If you are a doctor or engineer in training, are thinking about how to combine this with your interest in motorsport and you have somewhere between nine and eighteen months spare to fill with something a bit different, the FIA are offering a scholarship that you might want to think about.

Here's the deal. The FIA are looking to churn through their existing research and maybe get a few new projects going. So they are offering a scholarship position with the newly establ...

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FIA Institute Medicine in Motorsport Summit 2014

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Wednesday, December 17, 2014, In : Conferences, courses & events 


Well, I'm back in Sydney after 5 days in Doha, Qatar, attending the FIA Institute's Medicine in Motorsport Summit, which is run parallel to the FIA's Annual General Assembly. The AGA is where the year is reviewed and the technical specifications and regulations for the next year's season are finalised. It finishes off with the prize-giving ceremony for the various championship categories, including Formula One, World Rally Championship and World Endurance Championship.

Similarly, at the biannu...

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Cases from the races at SMACC GOLD

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Thursday, August 7, 2014, In : Conferences, courses & events 
Back in March I posted a podcast that I recorded at the smaccGOLD conference with Northern Irish anaesthetist and motorbike race doc, John Hinds, and Aussie anaesthetist and motorsport doc, Brent May. The talk that John had been invited to SMACC to give has been released on the other site that I'm involved with, the Intensive Care Network. The pro-con debate between John and Brent on the usefulness or not of cricoid pressure in airway management is also available on the ICN site.



John's "Cases...
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Medical response at Formula 1: Insider

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Wednesday, May 21, 2014, In : Musings and opinion 


For anyone who doesn't already know, Dr Gary Hartstein, the previous FIA Medical Rescue Co-ordinator who rode shotgun with Alan van der Merwe in the Mercedes AMG C63 station wagon at the back of the grid for each F1 start, has moved on from mere tweeting and now writes his own blog, A Former F1 Doc Writes.


More recently, he has started a series of posts on how a medical response to a racing incident is articulated. The posts give an insight into how the process is managed at the very highest l...

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Concussion biomarkers - The new brain 'troponins'?

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Wednesday, April 2, 2014, In : Clinical topics 


My thanks to Rik Hagen for the heads up on this article on a trial of brain injury biomarkers; specifically neuron-specific enolase (NSE), S100 calcium-binding protein (S100-B) nad total tau protein (T-tau).

Now, I can hear your eyelids closing already, but stick with me on this because it may be an indicator of future directions, both in terms of how we approach concussion in sport and perhaps for the level of expectation that is placed on the abilities of medics providing cover at sporting e...

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Podcast 7 released

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Wednesday, April 2, 2014, In : Podcasts 
Last week I put up a podcast recorded at the smaccGOLD conference with John Hinds (Irish Anesthetist, Intensivist, Prehospitalist and Road Racing doctor) and Brent May (Australian Anesthetist, Prehospitalist and Motorsport doctor). We discussed the hazards of providing medical cover at long distance events, the differences between circuit and closed public road motorbike events and some injury patterns to be aware of.

Podcast 7 - Irish road racing and Australian circuits with John Hinds and Br...
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Hugh Scully on TEDx

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Sunday, January 19, 2014, In : Conferences, courses & events 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Wednesday, May 29, 2013

TED talks have established themselves as a major medium for transmitting ideas and knowledge. Starting in 1990 as a means of sharing design and technology topics, they have expanded into all aspects of thought, opinion and project with presentations from all walks of life. The TED motto is "ideas worth sharing" and speakers are given about 20 minutes for their presentation.

Following on the success of TED talks, the TED franchise has been...
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The 2013 AAN Guidelines on sports related concussion

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Sunday, January 19, 2014, In : Clinical topics 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Thursday, March 28, 2013



The American Academy of Neurology released their guidelines on concussion in sport this month. They serve as an update to the existing guidelines, orginally published in 1997. The evidence is mostly drawn from field sports; rugby, soccer, hockey, basketball. 7 of the 12 panel of experts were non-neurologists, drawing from other specialties that are involved in managing concussed athletes. The 2013 guidelines involved a review of all ava...
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Monitoring on the go

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Sunday, January 19, 2014, In : Clinical topics 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Saturday, March 16, 2013

I'm sitting in the front passenger seat of a Mercedes E250 station wagon between Turns 13 and 14 of the Albert Park Formula 1 GP circuit watching Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren and the others zip around. Earlier in the day I was chatting to the senior ambulance co-ordinator who gave me some interesting reading material.

It is a brochure from a company called Remote Diagnostic Technologies Ltd who produce a portable patient monitor called the...
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Pre-hospital RSI - Addressing some of the challenges

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Sunday, January 19, 2014, In : Clinical topics 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Wednesday, January 23, 2013



Airway management can be a cause of great stress in the well apportioned and resourced resus bay of an ED or an ICU or in an operating theatre. The stress factor is magnified in the pre-hospital environment where the conditions and elements may operate against you. This can be even worse if you are working with people and equipment that you are unfamiliar with, as is not uncommon at motorsport events.

So it's always worth seeing how t...
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Concussion in Motor Sports - Assessment and controversies

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Saturday, January 18, 2014, In : Conferences, courses & events 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Tuesday, December 18, 2012

OK, this is my first video podcast, so it may not be up to the Scott Weingart or Mel Herbert standard, but we'll fire ahead regardless.

A little over a week ago I attended the FIA Institute Medicine in Motor Sport summit in Istanbul, where I had been asked to give a presentation on the assessment of concussion at motor sport events and the tricky issue of clearing competitors to return to play. It came out of work I'd been involved wit...
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FIA Annual General Assembly Istanbul 2012

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Saturday, January 18, 2014, In : Conferences, courses & events 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Last week I went to the FIA Annual General Assembly, which was held in Istanbul, Turkey. It ran for a week and the first day and a half were, for the first time, given over to medical and rescue aspects of motor sports, under the title of Medicine in Motor Sport. And it was pretty good.



Monday morning was a Chief Medical Officers' seminar, which consisted of a report from each of the major FIA categories (F1, WRC, WTCC and WEC) and a...
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Trauma coagulopathy & Head and Spinal injury prediction

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Saturday, January 18, 2014, In : Clinical topics 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Wednesday, August 1, 2012

If you keep an eye on some of the great critical care blog sites, at some point you will have come accross Cliff Reid's Resus M.E. site. Recently he has put up 2 great posts that should be of interest to all of us who practice medicine and rescue in motor sports.

The first is a presentation given by HEMS doctor, Pete Sherren, on the bleeding trauma patient. He outlines an illustrative pre-hospital case and follows through to the ICU ad...
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Concussion and the 'Second Impact Syndrome'

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Saturday, January 18, 2014, In : Clinical topics 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Friday, June 8, 2012

I've been working away on a project for concussion in motorsport and it seems that, much like the rest of medicine, the more we examine what we think we know, the less we find we really do.

Concussion is a problematic injury in sports in general. It's easy to miss and has the potential to do further harm. Watching a rugby player stumble around the field after a blow to his head makes it easy to see how he could fall over and dislocate a sho...
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Scalpel-finger-tube emergency surgical cricothyroidotomy

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Saturday, January 18, 2014, In : Clinical topics 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Saturday, May 19, 2012

Airway management is a hot topic amongst ED, critical care and pre-hospital communities and emergency cricothyroidotomies are generally the procedures that create the most angst. Largely it's the decision that it needs to be performed that fills most pants, rather than the actual doing. But just to make it a bit more troublesome, there are several approaches that are promoted.

Two Adelaide anaesthetists who also work in retreival, have rep...
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Continuing after concussion

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Saturday, January 18, 2014, In : Clinical topics 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Thursday, April 26, 2012

I caught up with the IRC Series recently and watched the Circuit of Ireland event on wrcforeva's YouTube channel. If you watch "IRC 2012 Circuit of Ireland - Day 2 Highlights" at about 17:54 on the timeline, Andreas Mikkelsen has a high speed side impact with a haybale barrier on the short Lisburn stage.



The commentator states that Mikkelsen lost 40 seconds on the stage and complained of "dizziness". It is suggested that he sustained a ...
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New name for the ASMMR

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Saturday, January 18, 2014, In : Notifications 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Monday, March 19, 2012

The Australian Society for Motorsport Medicine and Rescue was set up in an attempt to bring together physicians, paramedics and rescue specialists who take their skills to motorsport events. The aim was and still is to share medical and motorsport information and experience amongst all practitioners, newcomers and established.

However, while the title was created somewhat tongue-in-cheek, it is probably a little austere and doesn't exactly...
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Rally Australia CoC awarded FIA Senior Official of the Season

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Saturday, January 18, 2014, In : Musings and opinion 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Michelle Gatton, a former rally driver, has been officiating for Australian and Asia-Pacific rally events for more than 10 years. This year she was the Clerk of Course for the Rally Australia stage of the 2011 WRC season. For her efforts, she was recently awarded the FIA Outstanding Senior Official of the Season.

You can read more about Michelle and her award here:
http://www.cams.com.au/en/Media/News/2011/Australian_named_FIA_Outstandi...
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Michelle Mouton gets Knighted

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Saturday, January 18, 2014, In : Notifications 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Saturday, January 7, 2012

Former WRC driver, Michelle Mouton, received the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor from France's president Nicolas Sarkozy just prior to Christmas, for her services to motorsports. She was the last woman to compete in the WRC, having followed a very successful career.

Starting as a co-driver, she switched to the driver's seat of a Renault Alpine A110. She competed most famously behind the wheel of the awesome Audi Quattro and , having ...
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Inventive approach to rapid cricothyroidotomy

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Thursday, January 16, 2014, In : Clinical topics 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Emergency cricothyroidotomy is a scary beast in the resus room of a tertiary hospital ED. Having it flop down in front of you at a race event is a pant filler!

There is constant debate over the best method to use, bouncing between needle cric and scalpel cric with various versions of tube introduction. There are supporters of both approaches, with cogent arguments on both sides, as seen on the previously mentionned EM Crit debate, betw...
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Farewell Dan Wheldon and Marco Simoncelli

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Thursday, January 16, 2014, In : Musings and opinion 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Monday, October 24, 2011

It has been a bad week for motor sport and more specifically for the families of motorsport competitors. The weekend before last, Indy Car driver Dan Wheldon was kiiled in a high speed, 15 car pile up at the Las Vegas circuit and yesterday Marco Simoncelli was killed at the Malaysian Moto GP. Both deaths occurred during racing and resulted in the remainder of each event being appropriately canceled.

Dan Wheldon, an Englishman who had pre...
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Australians assisting with Year 2 of F1GP South Korea

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Thursday, January 16, 2014, In : Musings and opinion 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Tuesday, October 4, 2011

The F1 juggernaut returns to South Korea in just under two weeks for the second time. Last year was the first ever hosting and a training team assembled by CAMS went over to help the Korean team to prepare and conduct the event. There were a number of stumbling blocks along the way, but despite these, the event won an FIA award for its efforts.

This year a smaller Australian contingent is returning to Mokpo for back-up while the K...
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CAMS/NMAC Review for Medical Services Requirements at Motor Sport Events in Australia

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Thursday, January 16, 2014, In : Regulations developments 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Monday, October 3, 2011

Earlier this year, the National Medical Advisory Council, which acts as an advisory body to CAMS on medical matters as they relate to motor sports, reviewed the medical services and requirements component of the CAMS General Regulations, which are located in the CAMS Manual of Motor Sport (http://www.cams.com.au/Sport/CAMS_Manual_of_Motor_Sport.aspx).

The document details personnel, vehicle and equipment requirements, along with the for...
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Medicine in Motor Sport, the movie (well ... the textbook, to start with)

Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Thursday, January 16, 2014, In : Musings and opinion 
Posted by Matthew Mac Partlin on Thursday, June 30, 2011

Anyone who has visited the FIA or FIA Institute websites in the last 3 months, or has read the most recent edition of the ASMMR Newsletter will be aware that the FIA have published the Gary Hartstein edited textbook  "Medicine in Motor Sport". You can read it online on the FIA Institute website or buy it for your e-reader from Amazon at www.amazon.com/dp/B004XJ6BQG. I'm planning on putting aside some time to leaf through it over the next...
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