Dr David Hillebrant attended the 2008 annual meeting of the UIAA medical commission, and compiled the following report.

Venue
Meeting was held at Zdonov near Adrspach/Teplice in Czech Republic

Date
Full day meeting on 2nd October 2008 followed by a day when UIAA members gave their services as lecturers for a day conference on Mountain Medicine.

Attendance
Sixteen UIAA medcom members attended including myslf as the BMC representative and Audrey Morrison as a UK corresponding member. Other countries represented included Czech Republic, Nepal, Japan, France, Germany, Iran, Spain, Argentina, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Netherlands and Greece.

Minutes
Full minutes, taken by myself, will be available from the UIAA website but this report concentrates on the business particularly relevant to UK based mountaineers.

UK Representatives
Dr Jim Milledge sent his resignation from the Medcom after many years of outstanding service as a BMC representative to make way for a younger UK mountaineering doctor. This was reluctantly accepted but he was immediately appointed as a corresponding member and it was made clear that he invaluable and wise counsel will continue to be welcome. Jeremy Windsor was accepted as Jim’s BMC replacement in his absence. Audrey Morrison, with her interest in sports climbing and physiology was accepted as a corresponding member. David Hillebrandt the other BMC representative was appointed for a second term as Vice President of the commission.

Country Reports
Each representative updated the committee on the mountain medicine activity in their own country. It was good to hear how well the UK produced free website downloadable booklet “Travel at High Altitude” has been well used and received with translations now available in Nepali and Greek with Spanish and Swedish translations proposed. This booklet is designed to give simple medical advice to the non-medically qualified climber going to altitude can be accessed on www.medex.org.

It was also encouraging to hear that the well established UIAA/ICAR/ISMM diploma of Mountain Medicine continues to run in over seven countries with Japan and the Scandinavian countries planning apply for approval of their courses. In the UK there are now seventy doctors who hold the qualification and who can now offer advice to climbers in most areas of the country. Thirty more are currently in the pipeline and should qualify in the next two years.

Medical Screening on Aconcagua
For the last few years the Argentine Park Authorities have employed a team of doctors at camps on the walk-in to medically screen climbers attempting to climb Aconcagua (6959m). Several British and other climbers have been turned back having already flown to South America and committed themselves to considerable expense. The medical committee felt that the screening methods employed were based on dubious data and are taking this up with the Argentine authorities whilst accepting that they are having to cope with the very real problem of inexperienced mountaineers attempting this high altitude peak. It is hoped that the BMC will also be making representations to the relevant authorities in Argentina.

UIAA Medical Advice Sheets
For the last year the UIAA Medcom team has been working to update the advice sheets available to all climbers on the UIAA website. These were finalised and should appear on the website within the next six weeks. Hopefully there will be links from the BMC website. Subjects include Women and Children at Altitude, Going to Altitude with pre existing medical conditions, Altitude Illness prevention and treatment, Prevention and treatment of Travellers Diarrhoea, water purification, what to look for when booking a commercial trek or expedition and a doctors contract for commercial expedition work. In addition Audrey Morrison had produced new consensus guidelines on nutrition advice for mountaineers.

After the meeting
After a hard days work at the meeting and a day of conference lecturing and running workshops David and Audrey joined other members of the commission to climb on the amazing sandstone towers in the area. All members were happy to second the routes and observe the local tradition of only using knotted slings for protection on the soft rock, often resulting in 30m runouts.

Report compiled by David Hillebrandt, Hon Medical Advisor to BMC
dh@hillebrandt.org.uk
9/10/08

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