Entry & progression
Certificate: STCW Proficiency in Medical Care Onboard Ship (A-VI/4-2) — for the person designated to take charge of medical care aboard, typically a senior officer. Goes beyond first aid to ongoing patient care. Entry: Medical First Aid (A-VI/4-1). Revalidation: refresher required (typically every 5 years).
Managing the patient
- Take a history, examine the patient, and record the observations over time to track the trend.
- Use the ship's medical guide, its medicines and its equipment appropriately.
- Administer medicines and treatments under radio-medical guidance.
- Manage the nursing care — hygiene, nutrition, comfort and monitoring — over the days the patient is aboard.
Where the first aider handles the first minutes, the officer in charge of medical care manages the patient over time: assessing, treating, monitoring, and nursing them with the ship's resources under professional guidance from ashore. Regular, recorded observations — pulse, breathing, temperature, conscious level — show whether the patient is improving or deteriorating, which is exactly what the radio-medical doctor needs to guide the treatment. Medicines are given following the ship's medical guide and the doctor's advice, never guessed at.
NOTE — The ship is a small clinic The officer in charge of medical care runs the ship's medical resources as a small clinic — assessing, treating and monitoring the patient over time under professional guidance from ashore, not just giving first aid.
TIP — Recorded observations show the trend Regular observations of pulse, breathing, temperature and conscious level, written down, reveal whether the patient is getting better or worse. That trend is what the radio-medical doctor relies on to guide the care.