Dr. Linda Sanders has provided medical services to endurance races on multiple continents. She has worked in conditions cold and hot, mountainous and desert, and everything else. In this video interview, she explains what it takes to handle the medical demands of events where you can’t always just run to the nearby drugstore for supplies or quickly take a patient to the emergency room. With competitors pushing their bodies by running upwards of a marathon a day, the medical team is a vital part of such events.
I met Linda and some of her colleagues at the American College of Emergency Physicians annual Scientific Assembly, where I had been hired to shoot video at some of the events. Linda and her compatriots in the organization’s wilderness medicine section had wanted to create a series of videos to help other medical personnel know what to expect when working these sorts of long-distance races. This interview came toward the end of that day of shooting, in which we covered topics like a competitor who collapses on the course, how to properly tape various important body parts, and what a doctor needs to bring in his or her bag. Linda is going to edit those videos together and you’ll be able to see them roll out in the coming months.
