Your medical career takes off here!

Become a LifeFlight Retrieval Registrar

Applications for the 2025 intake are now closed.

We will open our 2026 Retrieval Registrar recruitment campaign in October 2024 until January 2025.  To help prepare your resume and application, please feel free to review the QLD Health and AHPRA templates and guidelines.

Please monitor our Clinical Careers page for the opportunity to apply in October.

If you have any further questions, you can email our helpful team at careers@lifeflight.org.au.

Read about the latest intake where LifeFlight welcomes 26 new doctors.

What's involved?

Our Critical Care Doctors provide, in collaboration with flight nurses and paramedics, pre-hospital treatment and medical monitoring through deployment of our own rescue helicopter and air ambulance fleets.

LifeFlight also works in close partnership with the Queensland Government to place our doctors onboard community and Government-owned rescue helicopters across the state. LifeFlight assists by providing doctors, when required, on fixed-wing aeromedical services including the Royal Flying Doctors Service.

What's involved?

Our Critical Care Doctors provide, in collaboration with flight nurses and paramedics, pre-hospital treatment and medical monitoring through deployment of our own rescue helicopter and air ambulance fleets.

LifeFlight also works in close partnership with the Queensland Government to place our doctors onboard community and Government-owned rescue helicopters across the state. LifeFlight assists by providing doctors, when required, on fixed-wing aeromedical services including the Royal Flying Doctors Service.

Am I eligible?

There are certain criteria an eligible candidate must meet in order to apply for a LifeFlight Retrieval Medicine position. Take the 30-second eligibility test to see if you’re ready to apply, or view our Career Pathway Guide for advice on how to become eligible.

Upon acceptance, each term commences with an extensive week of induction training covering clinical skills in emergency retrieval and pre-hospital care as well as rotary and fixed-wing operational training. Training includes: winching, Helicopter Underwater Escape Training (HUET) and Emergency Breathing System (EBS).

Why LifeFlight?

Reputation – LifeFlight has been Queensland’s leading rescue helicopter service for over 40 years.

Locations – You’ll be based at one of Queensland’s world-class destinations and travel to a variety of other locations including Brisbane, Cairns, Mackay, Sunshine Coast, Rockhampton, South-West Queensland and Townsville.

Queensland’s newest medically configured aircraft – Our fleet of rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft offer a unique work environment.

State-of-the-art aviation and medical training facilities – The LifeFlight Training Academy features world-class equipment and hosts some of the best trainers in Australia.

Benefits

  • Attractive salary, including salary sacrificing and annual leave provisions
  • The opportunity to travel and work across a variety of locations and clinical environments
  • Five weeks annual leave per annum
  • Participate in a world-class training program conducted by internationally regarded and recognised medical clinicians
  • Simulation training and live mock medical and aviation scenarios in state-of-the-art facilities
  • Participate in weekly statewide clinical audit and debrief sessions
  • Monthly clinical governance updates
  • Become a lifelong member of the LifeFlight family

Are you an overseas trained doctor thinking about a career in pre-hospital retrieval medicine?

LifeFlight Registrar Oskar Larsson

Oskar Larsson is a Swedish registrar who moved his family to the beautiful Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia to join LifeFlight as a Retrieval Registrar.

Throughout his time with LifeFlight, Oskar was involved in more than one hundred lifesaving missions across the state.

 

 

Are you an overseas trained doctor thinking about a career in pre-hospital retrieval medicine?

LifeFlight Registrar Oskar Larsson

Oskar Larsson (Swedish) started as a Registrar with LifeFlight in July 2018; moving his family to the beautiful Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. Throughout his time with LifeFlight, Oskar was involved in more than one hundred lifesaving missions across the state.

LifeFlight work in partnership with EHAAT. A 6 – 12 month term with LifeFlight Retrieval Medicine will be considered favourable when applying for future posts with EHAAT.

EssexHerts Air Ambulance

Our location

Queensland is one of the most naturally beautiful places in the world. Clean air, one of the world’s longest coastlines in a single state and natural wonders everywhere you go. Queensland is Australia’s second largest state by area and third most populous. Both a commercial and mining powerhouse and a tourism mecca, Queensland has something for everyone, including thousands of square kilometres of unspoiled wonder.

Whilst Brisbane is shaping itself as a vibrant hub and world leader in attracting industry sectors that are globally scalable in the new world economy, our other aeromedical bases below in Toowoomba, Sunshine Coast, Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton, Roma and Cairns offer a different, and wholly more satisfying pace for many of our recruits. Many of them enjoy working across bases, experiencing a little bit of everything this amazing state has to offer.

Brisbane
43 Pandanus Avenue
Brisbane Airport
Brisbane, QLD, 4007

Brisbane
QGAir base
412 Wirraway Avenue
Archerfield
Brisbane, QLD 4108

Brisbane
Royal Flying Doctor Service
12 Casuarina Street
Brisbane Airport, QLD

Cairns
EMQ Hangar
12 Bushpilot Avenue
Aeroglen, Cairns, QLD 4870

Mackay
CQ Rescue Hangar
Mike Jones Street
Mackay Airport
Mackay, QLD 4740

Maroochydore
LifeFlight
Sunshine Coast Airport
David Low Way, Marcoola
Maroochydore, QLD 4564

Rockhampton
Capricorn Helicopter Rescue Services
Canoona Road
Rockhampton, QLD 4700

Roma
25 Hangar Drive,
Roma, QLD 4455

Toowoomba
Toowoomba Airport
McDougall Street
Toowoomba, QLD 4350

Townsville
QGAir base
114 Gypsy Moth Court
Townsville Airport
Townsville, QLD 4814

Townsville
Royal Flying Doctor Service
Gypsy Moth Court
Townsville Airport
Townsville, QLD 4814

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Testimonials

I am a LifeFlight Retrieval Registrar, which involves working full time with the Cairns QGAir EMQ Rescue Helicopter. I work alongside an incredibly talented team including the helicopter pilot, aircrew officer, rescue crew officer and intensive care flight paramedic. We operate in shifts over a 24hr period, 7 days a week to provide emergency aeromedical retrievals. This includes facilitating the transfer of critically unwell patients from rural hospitals and health care facilities (such as those I frequently staff as a Rural Generalist) to regional and tertiary facilities. It also involves being tasked as part of the primary response to scenes such as farm accidents, motor vehicle accidents or mass casualty events where we land on scene, provide medical care and fly to definitive care.

Dr Sandi Dawson (FACRRM, ACEM Advanced Trainee, Masters of Public Health & Tropical Medicine)

The challenge of critically ill patients, the problem solving, thinking on your feet outside of the hospital and working with a small team. The flying is simply amazing - it gives you an opportunity to see a lot of Australia and enjoy the much nicer weather!

Dr Sujit Kumarasinghe (UK Emergency Trainee, Postgrad Diploma (in progress) in Remote & Offshore Medicine through The Royal College of Surgeons Edinburgh)

I have been exposed to many different leadership styles throughout my ED training and the specialists who inspired me most had completed some training time in retrievals. In addition to the transferrable skills I would be able to develop, what could be better than having the opportunity to work with like-minded, highly skilled paramedics, nurses, pilots and rescue crew officers in small teams, with the patient at the forefront of all decisions, while working in some of the most spectacular places in Queensland?

Dr Claire Bertenshaw (post Fellowship FACEM training, Masters in Public Health)

Shortly after I obtained my FACEM I was credentialed as a retrieval consultant and took up clinical coordination in addition to my flight shifts. It was initially a scary and uncomfortable experience to hold clinical oversight over patients requiring aeromedical retrieval across an entire state as large as Queensland. However, over time, I noticed a significant overlap between the reasoning skills that I used in the ED and in coordination - and the two jobs have been mutually beneficial ever since.

Dr John Kao (FACEM, Retrieval Consultant, Medical Coordination Consultant)

Spending time on base with the aircrew and the paramedics is amazing, as they all have extensive experience and the best stories! I love the autonomy and the shared mental model of working in a small team with limited resources, in a multitude of unpredictable environments. Unlike in ED, we mostly get to focus on a single patient at a time, often providing a level of intensive care that they might not otherwise receive for several hours or even days. The extensive research occurring in prehospital and retrieval medicine at the moment is also exciting and satisfying, proving that what we do can make a significant difference to a patient’s outcome.

Dr Caroline Venner (UK trained, current ACEM Advanced Trainee, completing Masters in Public Health and Tropical Medicine)