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Guest blog - Captain Kelly Gordon

We’re finishing the year off with what we think is one of our very best guest blogs. You may have seen this month's guest before - in the world of social media, or at one of the Superyacht shows. But one thing is for sure, you will have been inspired by her down to earth attitude and love of her work and the crew around her. A true team player, welcome to the Red Square Medical guest blog, Captain Kelly Gordon!

Hi everyone, I’m Captain Kelly Gordon and it might surprise you to hear that I grew up inland in the state of Indiana, where the only coastline is a tiny little bit of Lake Michigan!

I didn’t really set out to become a Superyacht Captain, and prior to taking this path, I was actually a Chemistry Professor and it was completely by accident that I was introduced to the industry! But the literal minute that I stepped onto a yacht, I just knew!

I double dipped for a while, with yachting and teaching, as the boat that I was working on wes in the same town that I taught from. As time went on, I got more and more obsessed with yachting and realised that I wasn’t getting the intrinsic reward that I needed from teaching anymore. I am very, very adamant that if you are educating the future leaders of our communities and world, you darn well need to be passionate about it!

So, when I started to lose that passion, I knew it was time to leave the task to someone else. Yachting ticks all the boxes for me, both personally and professionally. What’s funny though, is that I quickly missed teaching and found myself teaching onboard all the time. Then came ‘The Captain’s Classroom’!

I’ve worked on Superyachts for 15 years and been a Captain for 10 years, and one of the things I love most about my job is the continual challenge and knowledge that I encounter and obtain every single day. I can genuinely say that no two days are the same and I am always learning. I currently work on a 108’ Pershing that travels the Caribbean, The Bahamas, East Coast of the USA, and The Great Lakes.


The challenge and intrinsic reward that this industry offered me is what first attracted me to it and the relationships that I have made with crew and locals of areas that we travel to are like no other. Some of the owners and managers that I have met along the way remain great friends to this day. 


To become a Captain takes a tremendous amount of sea time and on the job training, as well as all the mandatory training and certifications. I was really fortunate to have a great mentor from the start, who allowed me every opportunity at the helm, and encouraged me to spend as much time as possible in other departments as well. This is all vital knowledge when it comes to the safe and efficient operation of the vessel.


After obtaining my first level of licence through coursework, I continued to acquire sea time and additional schooling to earn licences for larger vessels. So it’s really that combination of sea time and schooling that took me to Captain level.


Drills and self-study help me to keep current, and the more the better!  I also try to attend courses and training sessions that may be offered as well.  But it can be really hard to keep up to date when you work on a fast-paced vessel. 


In addition I have my MedPic licence which is a 10 day course that allows me to be the Medical Person in Charge onboard.  I also update my CPR and First Aid every two years along with refreshing my Basic Safety Training every five years.  Again, though, I can’t emphasise enough the importance of drills and self-study. I attribute a lot of my ability to my time spent as a Veterinary Technician.  There is an undeniable amount of crossover and skills that can be transferred to humans.

As I mentioned, the safe and efficient operation of the vessel is the key role of a Captain, but this includes management of the crew, ensuring that the vessel is maintained to the highest possible standard, with service levels to match, and an overarching responsibility to the crew, guests, owner and vessel. 


That said, being a Captain has little to do with navigation and manoeuvring the vessel, it’s actually more along the lines of being a CEO! Management is by far the most important part of the job, whether managing the crew, vendors and supplies, or the guest expectations. There are lots and lots of phone calls and emails every day!


Right now I’m managing a fairly extensive yard period prior to the season. But when we are back in the water it will be managing a lot of the fun stuff - travel and play with the vessel's owner. It’s all fun for me really though, as I genuinely love my job!


There are good and bad parts to all jobs, and probably the most rewarding and equally frustrating for me is the Crew! I say this with a full heart and a big smile as I have the most amazing relationships with each and every one of my crew members. But at the same time, managing crew dynamics can be quite challenging at the best of times. Similarly, navigation, manoeuvring and the weather can be fabulous and difficult in equal measure. 


At the moment I’m at my home port more than I normally would be, due to the programmed repair work in the boatyard. At other times, the program may mean that I’m away for 3 or 4 months at a time on Charter. This means long days as Charter typically demands 16 hour days with interrupted shifts.


Many years ago, I did work as a Veterinary Technician, so it follows suit that the medical side of my job is also one of the most rewarding - when everything goes as planned! I love medicine, so when I get to exercise that skillset, it provides me with a tremendous intrinsic reward.  I currently have the industry leading supplier's medical kit onboard and it’s quite extensive - we carry a wide variety of medications and equipment.  Fortunately, my owner doesn’t have any budget restrictions in this area, so we are allowed and encouraged to carry the best of the best.  


Some stand out incidents are commanding the rescues for a man who fell off the top of his vessel and broke his jaw, a few ribs and knocked out several teeth. Another was actually my current First Officer who fell and broke his hand. Then a man who had a massive brain bleed and was fading quickly. 


The challenge in all of these examples was that they were all in the Out Islands of the Bahamas, where medical facilities are non-existent and any care provided is from the onboard crew. Transport back to the mainland and Nassau can be difficult to arrange, but we managed it, and each and every event was executed safely and successfully.


My crew and I work well together, so each of these incidents ran smoothly. My crew weren’t affected as much as I was, especially with regard to the gentleman with the brain bleed. Afterwards, I communicated with his wife daily, often multiple times a day after the accident. Sadly, he passed away as the brain bleed was a complication of a former cancer and I did have a really hard time with this. But, I’m better about it now and so is his wife. 


It’s a good point to mention that clearing my head and staying mentally fit is a huge part of my life. I haven’t always been mentally fit and did go through a very dark period in life. Because of that, I have done a significant amount of ‘headwork’. 

I believe that it all boils down to the conversations that you have with yourself. If you think about it, we spend more time communicating with ourselves than anyone else, but we don’t always speak so kindly to ourselves.  I always ask myself, is this something that you would say to your best friend and if it isn’t, I need to rethink what I am communicating to myself.  


In addition, I need alone time.  I really enjoy my own company, something that took a looooong time to create and become comfortable with and I need this time to recharge.  I find that my career takes a lot from me, so I have to find the time to give back to myself.  This is something that I could go on and on about!  

 

For the future, I’ll stay in the industry for sure. But, it will most likely be in the capacity of speaking and advocating for change, to make the industry an even better place than it currently is. I’d also like to get back to my roots, too, and spend some time outdoors with my animals.


Finally, my top 3 pieces of equipment that I’d recommend to anyone going out to sea would be a life jacket, an EPIRB and a first aid kit. The lifejacket will keep you afloat, you never know when you’ll need a first aid kit, and keeping an EPIRB on you is as close to a 100% guarantee that you will be rescued if you ever need to be!

Enjoying our guest blogs? Thinking you might like to feature??? Or perhaps you know someone that would be willing to chat to us about their career. It doesn't have to relate back to medical but it does need to have either a maritime or medical (or both) theme. Get in touch and let us know.


You can also stay up to date by signing up for our free resources or take a look at our Salt Water Solutions page for some useful updating for your crew on all things first aid onboard.

Why not share this blog with your own networks....I bet they would be super interested in what Captain Kelly has to say!

That Lightbulb Moment!

by Rachel Smith • 24 Apr, 2024
At Red Square Medical, we’re fascinated by the learning process - it’s key to our business after all. But we often wonder what happens when our students leave the classroom. Do they remember what they’ve learnt? What if they’re faced with a real emergency, will they know what to do? Is there a lightbulb moment when it all clicks into place? Skill fade is a very real issue, as we wrote about in this blog , and we know that setting up drills and practice scenarios when you’re back in your environment, with your kit and crew, can make a massive difference. It’s great to get some feedback from our students too. Last year, we received photos from the Southern Ocean from a solo round the world sailor who was able to successfully steri-strip a cut eyebrow closed. Or the Captain who recognised a heart attack in a crew member because they looked just like the guy he saw in the video on one of our courses.

Worse Things Happen at Sea… a salty tale of dysentery, haemorrhoids, accidents, depression and death!

by Rachel Smith • 03 Apr, 2024
You might wonder about the title of this month’s guest blog, as Worse Things Happen at Sea is also the name of our monthly newsletter. But this month, we’re delighted to introduce Andrew Edwards as our Guest Blogger, and we felt his amazing story about life at sea really deserved a dramatic headline… Dysentery... In the summer of 1966, I was a cadet on a cargo ship that loaded in the UK for 9 ports in West, South and East Africa. Our first port of call was Luanda, the capital of Angola – which was then a colony of Portugal. Next, 300 miles down the coast we called in to Lobito – also in Angola. In Lobito two of the ship's company contracted dysentery; myself and a big Irishman called Reg. The shoreside Doctor we saw simply diagnosed the condition (amoebic dysentery) and said, ‘sorry but I have no antibiotics for this!’. Thankfully the ship’s purser stood our corner and demanded that the Doctor find some. The following day the antibiotics were flown in from the Belgian Congo. The Doctor gave us no advice as to how to deal with the condition, not a word about how contagious it was, not a word as to the importance of thoroughly washing our hands and maintaining scrupulous personal hygiene. Thankfully both Reg and I were quartered just a short sprint from the heads, and we were left to get on with it by our shipmates. It took about a week to get over the dysentery, by which time I had lost several stone in weight and was as weak as a kitten. By the time we arrived in Walvis Bay, South West Africa (now known as Namibia), a further 1000 miles south, I was just about fit enough to play football for the ship against a local team. Their football ground had a main road going right through the middle of it which made for some challenging moments, but they still beat us comfortably and they were playing in bare feet!

How does the Easter Bunny avoid Diabetes?

by Rachel Smith • 20 Mar, 2024
As it’s Easter, we thought that it would be a very appropriate time, what with all that chocolate around, to take a closer look at the subject of Diabetes and why it’s such a huge problem in the UK and across the world. The Easter Bunny always looks so cute and cuddly, but is he a diabetes case waiting to happen? Or does his diet of grass and all that hopping around for the rest of the year make an important difference? According to the WHO, diabetes is a chronic, metabolic disease which is characterised by elevated levels of blood glucose (or blood sugar). Over time, this leads to serious damage to the heart, blood vessels, eyes, kidneys and nerves. The most common is type 2 diabetes, and it usually develops with a late onset in adults. It occurs when the body becomes resistant to insulin or doesn't make enough insulin. Worryingly, in the past 3 decades the prevalence of type 2 diabetes has risen dramatically in countries of all income levels and is closely linked to obesity, poor diet, and an unhealthy lifestyle. Symptoms for type 2 diabetes are generally similar to those of type 1 diabetes (need to urinate often, thirst, constant hunger, weight loss, vision changes and fatigue), but are often less marked. As a result, the disease may be diagnosed several years after onset, after complications have already arisen. For this reason, it is important to be aware of risk factors. Effective approaches are available to prevent type 2 diabetes and to prevent the complications and premature death that can result from all types of diabetes. These include policies and practices across whole populations and within specific settings (school, home, workplace) that contribute to good health for everyone, regardless of whether they have diabetes, such as exercising regularly, eating healthily, avoiding smoking, and controlling blood pressure and lipids. Type 1 diabetes, once known as juvenile diabetes or insulin-dependent diabetes, is a chronic condition in which the pancreas produces little or no insulin by itself. Normal onset is in younger people, but can also be in adults. Symptoms of type 1 diabetes include the need to urinate often, thirst, constant hunger, weight loss, vision changes and fatigue. These symptoms may occur suddenly. Type 1 diabetes cannot currently be prevented. It’s thought to be caused by an autoimmune reaction which destroys the cells in the pancreas that make insulin. It can also be caused by genetics, viruses, trauma, tumours, removal of the pancreas or other damage to the pancreas. About 422 million people worldwide have diabetes, the majority living in low-and middle-income countries, and 1.5 million deaths are directly attributed to diabetes each year. But the number of cases and the prevalence of diabetes have been steadily increasing over the past few decades. The starting point for living well with type one or type 2 diabetes is an early diagnosis – the longer a person lives with undiagnosed and untreated diabetes, the worse their health outcomes are likely to be. Easy access to basic diagnostics, such as blood glucose testing, should therefore be available in primary health care settings. Patients will need periodic specialist assessment or treatment for complications. A series of cost-effective interventions can improve patient outcomes, regardless of what type of diabetes they may have. These interventions include blood glucose control through a combination of diet, physical activity and, if necessary, medication; control of blood pressure and lipids to reduce cardiovascular risk and other complications; and regular screening for damage to the eyes, kidneys and feet to facilitate early treatment.

Reflective Practice and why it’s so important

by Rachel Smith • 21 Feb, 2024
Well, we’ve made it to February! How are your goals for the year going so far? As you’ll know, we do love a bit of goal setting at Red Square Medical HQ. But, we also understand the importance of Reflective Practice too. Especially in relation to setting goals. Want to know more? Please read on…

Guest Blog - Sam Kelly MSA

by Rachel Smith • 07 Feb, 2024
Today we start the first in a series of blogs in conjunction with our friends at the Maritime Skills Academy, and kicking it all off is a Guest Blog from MSAs Head of Training, Sam Kelly. Sam is 37 and lives in southeast Kent, in the quaint seaside town of Deal with with his wife, two children and a ‘Golden Doodle’ called Pringle. He has lived in the area ever since his father, a serving Royal Marine at the Deal Depot, and mother decided this was the place to raise their family. And it is, quite frankly, an excellent place to live. Here is his story… I’m the Head of Training for the Maritime Skills Academy, based in our head office in Dover. I oversee a team of Maritime Safety Instructors who deliver all STCW training for seafarers. Outside the Dover base, we have MSA Gibraltar. This location is operated in partnership with the University of Gibraltar and delivers Basic Safety Training and most recently Operational Firefighting, We are actually in the process of building a state-of-the-art Fire Training Module on ‘the Rock’.

Dry January!

by Rachel Smith • 17 Jan, 2024
So Christmas seems like years ago, and we’re all well into the New Year now. Did you make any resolutions? Some love to, some don’t. At Red Square Medical HQ, we love a goal or two and think the turn of the years can be a good prompt to make some positive changes. But, it’s well known that New Year resolutions don’t last. Forbes magazine tells us that 21% don’t make their resolution stick for even a month. While 34% state that it lasted for between one and three months. Is that a failure though? Or could it be all it takes to make some small changes that have a lasting impact? We thought it would be good to take a closer look at one of the most popular resolutions… Dry January! Now, let’s get one thing straight, the Red Square Medical team are not averse to a tipple or two! But as medics, we’re very aware of the short and long term benefits of giving our livers a little breather every so often. Of course, everyone responds differently to stopping drinking for a month, so the timeline below is just a guide. But it might help you to decide whether it’s a good idea to give the booze a break for a while, or work towards reducing your intake - we know it’s easy for it to creep up over time!

12 months since I left the NHS

by Rachel Smith • 03 Jan, 2024
What I miss most about the Ambulance Service… It’s been 12 months since I left the Ambulance service after 8 years of working frontline, and to be honest it’s flown by. A few weeks ago the team at Red Square Medical HQ were chatting about how life has changed in that time and what, if anything, I was missing from my former life! The list might just surprise you… Most of all, I miss my old colleagues and I definitely miss the patient contact. And driving on blue lights… that was one of the best parts of the job! Working in the ambulance service with regular partners who you get on well with really does create friendships for life. Or even doing a tricky job with someone you don’t know well provides a common bond forever. Every day you’re facing stressful situations and sometimes split second, life changing decisions. You rely on each other totally and make sure you keep each other safe in some difficult and challenging situations. I worked with 3 very different partners most of the time for my last few years and I miss them all. Happily though, I have some great new colleagues at Red Square Medical and Outreach Rescue, the other company that I work for.

Guest Blog - Rachel Smith

by Rachel Smith • 03 Jan, 2024
I was born in a tiny village in Northamptonshire but had a fairly nomadic childhood, eventually settling in the industrial town of St Helens in the north west. As a child I was horse mad, so boats never got a look in. Apparently ‘horse’ was the first word I said and despite the fact that we could never afford a horse, my dream was always to ride and work with horses. It’s perhaps an early indication of my goal-oriented side that I got a Saturday job as soon as I could. At the age of 13, I’d cycle a 12 mile round trip, twice a day, just to go and ‘muck out’ at a local farm where they bred Welsh ponies and Arab horses! There wasn’t even any riding. Later, I found myself working for the family of a young girl who would go on to represent Great Britain in dressage at the Olympics. The work was physically hard and the standards high. No corners were cut and I learnt the skills I needed the old fashioned way. I got to travel all over the UK in the branded horsebox which was pretty exciting for a teenager. But I think I will always be grateful for the solid work ethic and sense of responsibility that this job instilled in me. I always planned to leave school at 16 and go to ride racehorses. But I got quite reasonable exam results and a new degree course was announced in Equine Science and Business which changed the plan. So, after taking the required year out, when I worked in an eventing yard in Yorkshire, I started the 3 year course. For the two work placements, I opted to go abroad, to Italy and the USA, which supercharged my desire to travel. I continued working in the equestrian world for a couple more years, but the poor pay and prospects, plus a dose of pneumonia pushed me onto a different path. I got a job in telemarketing for a bank, and after putting forward the idea of finance for horses, I found myself transferred to Marketing for 6 months. 16 years later, I was still there!

Are they wearing a beer jacket??

by Rachel Smith • 20 Dec, 2023
Christmas is coming and the season of parties is upon us. Of course this means that most of us will overindulge in large amounts of luscious food and, of course, a tipple or two. At Red Square Medical HQ, we have a method of categorising drunk people. During our combined careers, we’ve dealt with more drunks than we can remember; it’s easily running into several hundred. What we’ve learnt, amongst other things, is that most people who are drunk fall into one of these categories. Now please don’t judge as it is purely observation and also makes for an interesting chat when delivering the STCW Medical training, because we all know at least one person from each category and sometimes… a person can be in multiple categories depending on many other factors, or, we might even have been there ourselves! Once we have established these categories there is a serious note to this blog so please do keep reading.

Case study - amputated finger tip

by Rachel Smith • 15 Nov, 2023
A few months ago, we asked our community of LinkedIn followers for some case studies, focused on the kind of situations that are difficult to manage, especially in the middle of the ocean. One of the suggestions was for this situation from Neil McGowan: An engineer has amputated his finger during a repair task onboard. The vessel is 5 days from the nearest trauma centre. You are the only medic and you have limited resources. What is your plan? There are going to be lots of variables here, including whether any other injuries were sustained, whether you have telemedicine support, and what your ‘limited resources’ consist of?
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