H E A LT H , S A F E T Y, E N V I R O N M E N T & T R A I N I N G
“The medics are often the unsung
heroes of our industry because
they’re almost forgotten when
nothing is going wrong. But now,
they’ve shown the industry why we
have them and why we respect and
value their efforts and services.”
- Barry Quinn, Noble Corp
at how to better support the crew — even if that means having two
medics onboard instead of one.
Barry Quinn, HSE Director for Noble Corp, agreed there needs
to be more focus on health, as well as more emphasis on the role
of offshore health professionals. “We want to look more critically
at the role they play and what they’ve done, especially during the
pandemic,” he said. “The medics are often the unsung heroes of
our industry because they’re almost forgotten when nothing is
going wrong. But now, they’ve shown the industry why we have
them and why we respect and value their efforts and services.
These are highly educated, highly experienced professionals, and
what they’ve done through the pandemic is vastly different from
what they used to do.”
Mr Quinn echoed Dr McCann in saying that a major change for
offshore doctors and health professionals has been a new focus
on mental health and wellbeing, which requires additional train-
ing and longer hours. “Through the pandemic, rig crews have
suffered greatly,” Mr Quinn said. “Whether they couldn’t get home
due to extended rotations or company policy, or because they’re
dealing with quarantine protocols and new regulations, everyone
has been struggling and fatigued — and the medics have often
been on call 24/7 to handle that.”
Medics do not get the same break as crew members who work
in 12-hour rotations. Unless there are two medics onboard, even a
“break” offers another chance for a crew member to ask for some-
thing outside the confines of the medic’s office.
Fundamental changes in approach to health
Injury and mental health are just two pieces of the puzzle. In
addition to their standard duties, health professionals have also
been tasked with performing extensive pandemic-related proce-
dures. Additional layers of paperwork and testing have made the
job much more difficult and time-consuming. Even though the
volume of work performed by any individual medic is staggering,
Mr Quinn said there can be disconnect between what the medic
does and what the crew thinks they do. Furthermore, although
the medic spends much of their time with the crew and naturally
builds a rapport, they are almost always a third-party contractor
and can feel left out of specific milestones or drilling contractor
goings-on. “The medics, and all the health professionals who support
us across the globe, are a core part of our industry,” Mr Quinn
22 explained. “We cannot operate without them, and we sometimes
take for granted what they do, especially when things are looking
good. But when things are bad, when we really need them, they
step into the limelight.” Trust and respect are critical components
enabling a medic to effectively engage with the crew.
It is also important not to forget the ongoing support of the
shoreside medical crews — who assist the offshore medic when
necessary and who are sent to shore when there’s an injury or
infection that requires immediate attention from doctors and
nurses, Mr Quinn said. “The support of our medical team onshore
— whether it’s to facilitate testing, develop procedures, provide
guidance, or transfer equipment and supplies — is so crucial.”
He added that the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally
changed how the industry will approach medical concerns mov-
ing forward. Even though the severity of the virus appears to be
abating, its consequences will reverberate through the policies
and procedures of operators and drilling contractors for years to
come. Companies will now take a much more holistic and long-
term approach to health, especially when it comes to transmis-
sible viruses. They will also be more vigilant in monitoring and
safeguarding crew mental health and psychological wellbeing.
“We’re going to do what we do best and take all the collective
and cumulative learnings from the pandemic and apply them to
do things better,” Mr Quinn said. “We’ve learned a lot — how to be
smarter, how to be more efficient, how to take better care of people
— and the medics have really played their part in that.”
The role of third-party service providers
Most drilling contractors do not directly employ the health
professionals staffing their offshore vessels. Instead, such indi-
viduals are largely engaged contractually via third-party service
providers like International SOS (ISOS). ISOS employs thousands
of health professionals and deploys a small portion of them to
high-risk remote environments, like offshore rigs.
Wallace Bruce, Head of Offshore Clinical Operations for ISOS,
said he sees the role of the medic evolving even as demand for
these highly trained professionals increases, particularly in the
oil and gas domain. “Once upon a time, the role just focused on the
health of the crew — making sure everyone was doing well,” he
said. “Over the past couple years, especially with the appearance
of COVID-19, there has been a new focus within drilling contrac-
tors’ health agendas on occupational and mental health.”
Becoming an offshore medic isn’t easy, as candidates must
receive training on core medical skills while also learning occu-
pational health, which involves things like health monitoring,
water quality management and noise management. “We’re see-
ing new attention being given to the preventive side of things,
like helping crew members avoid noise-induced hearing loss,” Mr
Bruce explained.
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it an outsize focus on
mental health and wellbeing. Challenges for medics stem not just
from the virus itself but also from the anxiety of having to work
longer hours — often without any change in compensation. This
is leading to a new awakening to the criticality of the medic’s role
and the need to employ more trained medical personnel. “Most
times, the medic is the hub where people go to speak and express
M AY/J U N E 202 2 • D R I L L I N G C O N T R AC T O R
H E A LT H , S A F E T Y, E N V I R O N M E N T & T R A I N I N G
their thoughts,” Mr Bruce said. “They go there for an open ear.
That’s a big way their job has changed.”
The pandemic, Mr Bruce continued, has been an ongoing learn-
ing experience for ISOS, especially with government regulations,
local mandates and company protocols being innately compli-
cated and changing frequently. Along the way, the company has
improved how it adapts to changing situations, as well as kept
tabs on lessons learned that can be used in case another highly
contagious virus emerges in the future.
Although he hopes that day never comes, Mr Bruce remarked
that the company is more prepared than ever. “We’ve had two
years to get good at this,” he said. “One of the important things
we’ve done is establish documentation that we didn’t have previ-
ously, like isolation plans specific to a rig. In the past, there might
have been focus on dealing with catastrophic events, having
things like triage systems. Now, plans include testing, isolation
and how to get an individual off a rig. Those core documents
never existed in such detail before.”
If there has been an upside to the pandemic, Mr Bruce noted,
it was that it changed the perception of health across industries.
“Our clients are realizing the importance of health. While medics
used to focus on patching someone up or dealing with an emer-
gency, we’ve now seen several added layers because of COVID,”
he said. “People can now see the true value of what an offshore
medic brings to the table, especially in this remote environment.”
Many medics remain fatigued, yet many have persisted because
they feel called to the profession. “There is an element of selfless-
ness in the work, which is a reminder that these are individuals
who willingly place themselves in harm’s way for the greater
good,” Mr Bruce explained. “These are people who just get things
done. They understand what’s at stake, and they know what they
signed up for.”
View from the rig – an offshore doctor’s
perspective Dr Fabian Vicente Castañeda Romero is an emergency doc-
tor and physician onboard Seadrill’s West Titania jackup. On
any given day, his job pulls him in two distinctly different, but
ultimately connected, directions. One is the obvious — the medi-
cal portion — which involves treatment of patients, whether for
illness, minor injuries or, in the worst case, major sickness or
injury requiring escalation and removal from the rig. The other
part is the administrative side, which includes medical equip-
ment inspections, documentation and record-keeping, inventory
of supplies and medication, and so on. Some days pass with the
medic only involved in office procedures, while on other days
there may be a nonstop line of patients.
While there is basic medical equipment on a rig, there is not
anything for advanced procedures, nor is there medication for
more serious issues. The doctor, then, is also responsible for
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