Just before we started our work

After the first weekend of training, we all returned to our "day jobs" for one more week, then re-assembled for the last preview day dry run.

Nadine and our Chief Venue Medical officer, Dr. Gavin Stuart, the Dean of Medicine at UBC, gave us our final instructions. Everyone had amazing enthusiasm leading up to the arrival of the athletes.

The first image was of everyone on our team arriving and passing through security at the UBC Rink for the first time. The next images are Nadine conducting our training sessions.

Gail and I flew back from San Francisco just before the Games and found ourselves on the same plane as the US Bobsled Team. You can see them arriving at Vancouver Airport with their USA capes and on the image to the right of Nadine, notice one of the Bobsleigh drivers who refused to check his helmet. Instead, he wore it on and off the plane. When they were announced by the Flight Crew, the passengers went bananas! What a moment!

My first entry

We've been at this for a week of hectic activities here at the 2010 Games. I've created this blog to give everyone a flavor of what it's like to be in center of all this excitement. It's truly a unique once-in-a-lifetime event. The first pictures were taken at our Venue setup which began with empty rooms, dry ice rinks and a whole lot of enthusiastic Medical Team members who met for the first time a week before the practices began. We trained our team on the first weekend and then did a final run-through on February 4th. Our team consists of Physicians, Physiotherapists, and Paramedics from all across Canada (and me as the lone US Representative). We have Sports Professionals from Vancouver and Victoria B.C., Calgary Alberta, Winnipeg Manitoba, Ottawa Ontario, as well as large and small towns in The Maritimes and Northern Ontario among others. I hope everyone enjoys these photos. More as we go along. Leave me your comments!

GO CANADA!!!

The top photo is our supply area. Tons of stuff to sort through. The second photo is our Team Leaders. Zenya with the Ball Cap will manage the Paralymic Venue, Nadine, the smart blond, is our Lead PT, and Dory, on his knees is an Orthopod from here in Vancouver who is the Medical Director for all of the Hockey Venues, both Men (Canada Hockey Place) and Women (UBC Thunderbird Arena). Dory gave up nearly 2 years of his practice to put this team and the sites together for us.

In the 3rd photo, you can see our Trauma Room. There are 2 portable suction units on the table, an EKG Monitor on the right, just behind the Oxygen cylinders. through the door on the right, we have a Mini-C-Arm xray unit and Ultrasound which are both linked by high-speed cable to the Radiology Department at Vancouver General Hospital for "real time live" imaging. We can do everything here up to about an Appendectomy! Sorry about the duplicate lower photos. I'm just a novice at this.