Maritime Medicine – delivering healthcare to those at sea
11th August 2025, 18:00 to 19:00 BST
Overview
A life on the ocean wave is different from being ashore….. Members of the International Maritime Health Association will present an overview of the challenges of delivering medical care to those at sea. The webinar will include an overview of what makes living and working at sea unique to other remote environments including the assessment of fitness to work on board a vessel, the medical training of seafarers and the medical chest. We will also update members about ongoing work in areas of interest particularly the review of the Guidelines on the Medical Examination of Seafarers and telemedical advice.
Aims
This webinar will review the unique challenges faced by seafarers as they live and work at sea, sometimes for many months at a time. We will look at the assessment of their fitness to work at sea and understand the limitations of medical care available on board and difficulties accessing a higher level of medical care from a ship. We will also explore ongoing work to ensure that the guidelines for assessing medical fitness are up to date given the changes in management of certain conditions for example diabetes and the work to ensure that all doctors delivering telemedical advice are aware of the specific regulations, environment and difficulties faced by seafarers.
Learning Objectives
Webinar participants should gain maritime industry specific knowledge related to:
- The unique environment of life on board a vessel.
- The range of different types of vessels and the numerous roles on board.
- The training of seafarers in medical care, the medicines available to them and the support of TMAS.
- The current Guidelines on the Medical Examination of seafarers and the current work to review these and ensure they remain relevant.
- Ongoing work to train doctors providing telemedical advice to seafarers in the specific challenges of this remote environment.
Panellists
Our panellists include:
Dr Sue Stannard
Dr Sue Stannard was elected as President of the International Maritime Health Association in June 2022 having previously served as Secretary for three years. She was appointed as Chief Medical Advisor to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency in the UK in February 2022 and has a clinical background in Acute Medicine, Anaesthetics/ITU and Paediatrics. She worked as a Ship’s Doctor for P&O Princess and was later Medical Director at Carnival (UK). Sue was also Medical Director (Assistance) at International SOS in London overseeing all medical assistance cases. These included evacuation and repatriation flights, monitoring of medical cases overseas and providing medical advice to leisure and business travellers, expats and companies. She has worked as a Consultant at the Norwegian Centre of Maritime and Diving Medicine in Bergen and more recently as an Independent Consultant in Maritime Medicine, working closely with the maritime industry on a number of publications.
Other Panellists TBC
CPD
1 Hour
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Recording
A recording of the webinar will be made available on this page in the days following the live broadcast.
