A day in the life of...

I have worked for International SOS for 10 years and can honestly say I have never had the same day twice. When you assist people to access healthcare all over the world, every day brings a new challenge. As director of nursing in our London office, I am responsible for a large team of nurses who use their primary care and emergency medical skills to triage and assess people who contact us from all over the world.

7am
Being a global company, our cases are handled overnight by the medical team in our Sydney office. As soon as I arrive, I review the handover from Sydney, catching up on high priority, complex cases and those who may need international movement. There are often challenging cases which require medical support and direction throughout the day. Examples could be: a medical evacuation where we arrange an air ambulance from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Germany for someone with malaria; a patient with chest pain in Madagascar; a high-risk pregnancy in Bahrain; and someone requiring an urgent orthopaedic review to confirm if they are fit to return to a ship departing this afternoon.