Marcus Skinner

Affiliation and Current positions

• Clinical Director  Department of Anaesthesia and Perioperative Services Royal Hobart Hospital Hobart Tasmania 7000
• Clinical Associate Professor  University of Tasmania UTAS
• Final Fellowship Examiner ANZCA
  Australian New Zealand College of Anaesthetists
• Wing Commander Royal Australian Air Force Specialist Reserve
• Chair Tasmanian Anaesthesia Specialist Training Committee
• Designated Aviation Medical Examiner
  Civil Aviation Safety Authority
• Designated Medical Examiner Diving Medicine SPUMS

Qualifications

MSc ( Clinical Biochemistry), DipDHM, MBBS , FANZCA

Biography

Marcus did his basic medical training in Hobart sponsored by the Royal Australian Air Force through the medical Undergradute programme. Following his return of service obligations with the RAAF as a medical officer he undertake specialist anaesthesia training. It was during his time in the military that he became a Trauma instructor with the EMST programme and realised the need for trauma training in developing countries. In 1995 he was asked by Dr Haydn Perndt to run a pilot trauma training course with  Dr Douglas Wilkinson from Oxford in the UK to undertake a programme in Fiji. He was the co-author of the PTC manual with Douglas and they both ran the very first PTC course in Suva, Fiji in 1997.

Marcus has been involved with teaching on the PTC programme in Vietnam at Viet Duc University Trauma Hospital since 2004 with Prof Nguyen Huu Tu, now Chairman Hanoi University teaching Hospital and Dr Nguyen Duc Chinh Head Septic Surgery Viet Duc Hospital.  The history of the development of PTC in Vietnam stems back to 1998 when Dr Lena Dohlman began teaching the principles of trauma management to doctors at the Center for Traumatology and Orthopedics (CTO) in Ho Chi Minh City after staff at CTO expressed a need for such teaching. Dr Dohlman was introduced to PTC at the World Congress of Anaesthesiology in Montreal in 2000 and subsequently attended a PTC instructor’s symposium in Melbourne hosted by Dr Rob McDougall. Later that year. Dr Nguyen Hong Thu, Director of CTO and Dr Nguyen Ngoc Chung, Chief of Department of Anaesthesia and. Intensive Care, CTO, requested assistance in establishing a PTC course in Ho Chi Minh with Dr Chung and Dr Huynh Manh Nhi (paediatric orthopaedic surgeon) as local co-ordinators. The PTC teaching materials were translated into Vietnamese by Dr John Candy, and his colleagues at Viet Duc Hospital, in Hanoi. Dr Rob McDougal and others undertook two courses in Hanoi in 2003 along with an instructors course.  This was the foundation for the next decade of PTC in Vietnam.

Marcus maintains interest in aero-retrieval medicine, diving and hyperbaric medicine , trauma and the development of trauma programmes.