Medicine
When the Service first began, the responsibilities of the Flying Doctor were to fly to urgent cases, render first aid and, if necessary, transport the patient to hospital; give advice by radio; fly a regular clinic circuit to areas without doctors and consult with rural and remote doctors. In essence these are still the objectives of the Service today, however with improvements in technology telephones are used more than radios and increasingly the Service is taking advantage of video-conferencing technology.
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Over the years the practice has developed and expanded to take along on clinic flights medical specialists, dentists and various health related professionals.
Sister Myra Blanche was the first nurse employed by the RFDS in 1945. Sister Blanche worked for the New South Wales Section in the 1940s and 1950s undertaking home nursing, immunisations, advising on prevention of illness and general health care and, on occasions, filling in for the doctor.
Although she was called a Flying Sister, most of her travelling was in a utility instead of a plane and on occasions she even travelled on horseback. Flight Nurses as we know them today were not used by the Service on a regular basis until the 1960s.
Today, based on the judgement of the doctor authorising the flight, up to 80% of medical evacuations are made with only the flight nurse and pilot on board.
Remote control medicine became a reality when medical chests were introduced to outback stations in 1942.
Costing 12 pounds, each chest was identical and contained numbered drugs, bandages and other first aid materials.
The RFDS body chart, drawn by Sister Lucy Garlick in Broome, Western Australia in 1951, is still included in all medical chests and remains a vital tool in assisting with a patient's diagnosis via remote consultations.
A doctor speaking from anywhere, including an aircraft, can ask, by number, where pain is being felt, and then instruct the caller to use medication or treatment by referring to numbered items on the lid list of the chest.
Many tall stories grew up around the service and one about the medical chests is typical. A station manager was told to give his wife a number nine tablet. Later he told the doctor, "We'd run out of number nines, but I gave her one five and one four and she came good right away!"