From the minute the first participant shows up on race day till the time the last one leaves, responsibility for the wellbeing of everyone on and around your race course rests with you - the race director.
So, how can you make sure your medical preparations are up to scratch? How do you figure out how many - and what type - of resources to dedicate to your race? And where does your duty of care as the race organizer towards your participants even begin and end, practically, legally and morally?
That is what we’ll be discussing today with my guest, Natasha Beach. Besides being the medical director for such prestigious events and organizations as the Manchester Marathon, London Triathlon and Cancer Research UK, Natasha runs her own multi-award-winning event medical cover company, SportsMedics, as well as heading some of the most high-profile efforts to formalize race medical planning in the UK through her positions as Chief Medical Officer of England Athletics and medical advisor to UK Athletics.
In this episode:
- Understanding the stress the human body goes through during a race
- Why men are at a higher risk of suffering a medical incident during a race than women
- How speed, herd mentality and participant excitement make everything worse on race day
- How the incidence of specific medical issues evolves over the duration of a race
- Duty of care: what is expected of you as the race director
- The pitfalls of relying on public medical resources
- Doctors vs nurses vs paramedics vs first-aiders: what's the difference?
- Using in-house stuff and volunteers as your first-aid team on race day
- Vetting third-party first-aid cover providers and medical companies
- Working out how many and what types of medical resources you'll need
- Sharing your race medical plan with emergency services
- Collecting medical history notes from participants to use in case of an emergency
- Requiring mandatory participant medical certificates: do they help?
- Recording race-day medical incidents and compiling a post-race medical report
If you are based in the UK, you can sign Natasha's petition on extending regulation of health services to medical services at events here: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/633938
Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 28,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.
You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.
You can also share your questions about medical, risk and contingency planning or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.