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LifeFlight Retrieval Medicine is recruiting for eligible candidates who are ready to embrace a new challenge and advance their medical career.
What's involved?
Twice a year, LifeFlight Retrieval Medicine welcomes 31 new recruits to take part in a 6- to 12-month medical experience like no other.
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 this 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.
Why LifeFlight?
Reputation – RACQ LifeFlight Rescue has been Queensland’s leading community 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, Roma, Toowoomba 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 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 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? Undecided, unsure or overwhelmed with the process? Watch the video below.
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.
What we do
Australia’s most capable and diverse aeromedical operation
Geographical scope
FY20 Mission reports
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
RACQ LifeFlight
Sunshine Coast Airport
David Low Way, Marcoola
Maroochydore, QLD 4564
Rockhampton
Capricorn Helicopter Rescue Services
Canoona Road
Rockhampton, QLD 4700
Roma
11 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
53,000,0002 km
Australia’s search and rescue region
10
Community helicopters
6
Air Ambulance jets
9
Base facilities in Qld + Singapore
90
Minutes from answering a call and having an Air Ambulance jet airborne
15
Minutes from answering a call and having a helicopter airborne
6,333
Lifesaving missions performed this year
62,000+
Critical rescue missions since 1979
490
Air Ambulance missions
2,583
Aeromedical retrievals
490
Domestic and international Air Ambulance missions
2,022
Community helicopter missions
150
Critical care doctors
12
Aviation Operations Coordinators
159
Telemedical advisory service tasks
43,386
Calls in and out of our Coordination Centre
192,000
Text messages sent
166
Patients assisted out-of-hours for the RFDS
4
Operational planning and reporting staff
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 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.
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)
Careers at LifeFlight
As a LifeFlight health professional, you will perform fulfilling work every day and be supported by a management team that provides you with genuine autonomy and respect. You are at the heart of what we do.
As a member of LifeFlight’s aviation team, you’ll spend each day helping to save lives in Australia and around the world. Each day will be unique and exciting.
Our fixed and rotary-wing engineering department is one of the most skilled operations in the country, performing significant maintenance activities, fleet management tasks and major aircraft inspections.
As a member of our support team, you play a critical role in the lifesaving work that LifeFlight performs each day.
LifeFlight is a world leader in aeromedical care and Australia’s most diversified service, operating both a fixed-wing and rotary-wing fleet.
RACQ LifeFlight Rescue’s rotary-wing fleet is made up of ten helicopters:
- 5 x AW139 helicopters
- 3 x Bell412 helicopters
- 1 x BK117 helicopter
- 1 x Eurocopter AS350 helicopter
Two additional LifeFlight helicopters (2x AW139 helicopters), one each in Toowoomba and Roma, operate under a contract with a consortium of gas companies (Arrow Energy, Origin Energy, Queensland Gas Company, and Santos).
Typically, on board an RACQ LifeFlight Rescue helicopter is a pilot, co-pilot, Critical Care Doctor and flight nurse. Essentially, RACQ LifeFlight Rescue helicopters are flying intensive care units.
LifeFlight’s fixed-wing fleet includes four Air Ambulance Jets:
- 4x Bombardier Challenger 604
- 2x Learjet 45
The dedicated fleet of medically-configured jets are based in Townsville and Brisbane, and remain on standby 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Each jet carries a critical care doctor and flight nurse on board for all retrievals.
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