Care Delivery in Patient Transport: A Clinical Reference and Guide to Physiology, Stabilization, Crew Decision-Making for Flight Paramedics

Assess the Risk, Secure the Airway, Call the Mission Ready - Before Wheels-Up Built for the flight paramedic, critical care transport nurse, and transport physician who must decide, alone and under time pressure, whether a critically ill patient can survive the move, this reference connects transport physiology and confined-space constraint to the decisions made before wheels-up and in flight. It moves from crew resource management and platform selection through organ-system critical care in transit and into the equipment and handoff infrastructure that sustain consistent practice, applying a five-part Readiness Check at forty-six decision points indexed in a closing compendium. Trap-logic call-outs for the presentation that looks stable but isn't turn physiology into the specific action you take at the stretcher. From the Referral Call to the Final Handoff, You Will ¿ Translate altitude physiology into pre-flight readiness - Boyle's law-driven pneumothorax expansion and hypoxemia risk resolved into concrete go or no-go checks.¿ Secure the airway your cabin will actually let you manage - video laryngoscopy, bougie-first technique, and a failed-airway sequence sized to confined space.¿ Troubleshoot the device-dependent patient - IABP, VAD, and ECMO alarm logic that tells you whether to escalate support or check the cannula first.¿ Catch shock before the monitor does - compensated-shock recognition and the massive transfusion trigger you don't wait on hypotension to confirm.¿ Manage the neuro-critical and stroke patient in motion - intracranial pressure crisis response and blood pressure targets that flip once thrombolytics are given.¿ Deliver the baby you didn't plan to - precipitous delivery readiness and ductal-dependent congenital heart disease recognition before the ductus closes.¿ Apply the Transport Readiness System at the exact decision point - a five-part Readiness Check built into every chapter and indexed for rapid mid-mission lookup. Carry the judgment this specialty runs on into every mission you fly or drive.