The ACP International Conference provides an unmatched opportunity for our members to learn from experts and leaders in paramedicine. ACPIC 2021 was delivered as a hybrid conference (online and face to face in the Sunshine Coast, QLD and Hobart, TAS) in November 2021.

Paramedics are used to the emotional and physical challenges that the role commands. But there is an encounter that a paramedic may not be in anyway prepared for. The sickening, emotionally numbing feeling when they realise that have been dispatched to their own home. The battle between neurons and emotions is a one-sided slip, that once on, a paramedic will have little chance to regain control. What happens when these two worlds collide? How do we respond, cope and recover? I wish I had the answer, but I don’t. All I have to offer are my own experiences and observations as a paramedic whose two worlds have collided.

Biography: Sunny Whitfield

Steve Sunny Whitfield is an Australian-based paramedic academic, expedition leader, geographer, and writer with research interests in remote, polar and space medicine. He has experience in providing healthcare in remote and extreme environments that include humanitarian operations, high altitude expedition medicine, and flight, and retrieval medicine. Currently a lecturer at Griffith University School of Medicine (paramedicine), Steve is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Fellow of the Wilderness Medical Society.

Session moderator: Hayley Grant