Rig Medics UK

Taking your first steps into a larger world
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What you need to have and what you need to do to become an Offshore Medic in the UK

One of the most common questions I get at Rig Medics is “How do I become an Offshore Medic?”. It’s actually a fairly straightforward process. You book a course, you do the course, you apply for a job. The bit people find difficult is working out what course to do, where to do it, and who to apply to for a job. Hopefully, the following article will help you answer those questions.

What you need to have
For an agency or company to even read your CV, you will need to have successfully completed an HSE Approved Medic Training Course. Depending on where you do it, you will receive a variety of additional First Aid and ALS certificates, but the all important one is the “HSE Approved Offshore Medic” one. It’s this one that will allow you to work offshore in the UK and just about anywhere else in the world.

The course itself is about four weeks long when you do it the first time. Thereafter, you do a two week refresher every three years. But I am not going to go into the course in detail here – another article will cover that.

The main point is that you need to do it.

However, in order to get on the course, there are certain requirements. In order for Medics to provide a good standard of care, a minimum set of qualifications and experience have been designated and are detailed below. They were identified by the HSE as being the minimum standard required to provide medics with enough experience to ‘fly solo’ so to speak.

(Source http://www.ex-med.co.uk/training .aspx?course=255 )

Now there are some places that will consider applications on a case by case basis, but most training establishments will insist you have one of the above before they will allow you to do the course.

Ok, I’m qualified – what next?

Firstly, make sure you really want to do it and are aware of how working offshore can affect your life. Obviously you will never really know until you start, but it will help if you have a rough idea of what to expect – especially in terms of how it will impact your family and social life. I’ve done an article that details this aspect – but it’s pretty subjective and others will have had vastly differing experiences. If you want to find out more check the forums and ask some of our members for their opinions.

Ok, the next step is to try and find a training establishment near you. If you head over to the links page (http://www.rig-medics.co.uk/pages/links.html) and scroll down a bit, you will see there is a list of Training Establishments.
Capita, Ex-Med, Medicos North Sea Medical Centre and Interdive all run Medic courses. As you will see, they are located all over the country, so you will hopefully be able to find one that isn’t too far away.

Get in touch with the various companies and see who is doing the best the rates, but always remember that you may need to factor in living and accommodation expenses for the duration of the courses. When you first call them they will usually ask a few questions about you (to make sure you are suitable) and they may ask to see your CV.

One thing to note is that you don’t have to do the course all in one go. You can do a week here and a week there as you are able. There is one provider who even offers a distance learning option. Personally, I would try and do it all at once. You get a better feel for the job and you will get to know the folk on the course a lot better. This can be very handy when it comes to hearing about available jobs.

As I said earlier, I will cover the content of the course in another article. In the meantime, let’s assume you have done the course and are now the proud owner of a Medic Ticket. You’re ready to go offshore…almost.

You will also need to get yourself a ‘Basic Offshore Survival’ (or BOSIET) Certificate. Go back to the Links Page (http://www.rig-medics.co.uk/pages/links.html) and scroll down to the Training Section. RGIT, Nutec and Fleetwood all provide the Survival Course (3 days and approx £500). You’ll learn some bit’s and pieces about offshore life and get hit with a load of Health and Safety information. You will also get to play at being a fireman and escape from an upside-down helicopter in a swimming pool. People usually dread that bit, but I quite enjoy it (just bring noseplugs!)

Once you have the Medic and Survival Tickets, you are ready to go offshore. The trick now is convincing someone of your incredible ability and talents.

Getting your first trip

I don’t think I can stress this next bit enough…

YOUR FIRST TRIP IS ALL IMPORTANT!

Even if it is just a five day trip where you are covering for a sick medic, offshore experience is essential. I have been in many situations where a platform desperately needed a stand in medic. The HR department sends out a raft of CVs and the first thing the OIM (Offshore Installation Manager – the boss) asks is, “Have they been offshore?” If the answer is no, then he won’t be interested. No matter how well qualified you are and no matter how suitable you look to be, an OIM will almost always take the person with offshore experience.

Now this is the important bit – they rarely ask “How long have they been offshore?” This is why getting even a short ad-hoc trip is so important – it increases your employability significantly.

But then we get to the age old question of “How do I get experience if they will only take experienced folk?” Firstly, get your CV out to every agency and company you can find (check the links page again). The trick is, at first, to accept any job that is thrown your way. Even if it’s only a one off trip on a platform you have heard bad things about, take it. Even if you think the timing is a bit inconvenient, take it. Even if it is going to mean missing a birthday/Christmas/Wedding, take it. In fact Christmas and New Year are really good times to get agency work as a lot of medics can come down with sudden ‘illnesses’ at that time of year. I have known of medics who thought they could pick and choose their jobs from the start. 18 months after qualifying (and £3000 to £4000 down) they still hadn’t been offshore. The other nice thing about taking those little ad-hoc trips is that the wages help repay the money you laid out for the course. Even if you decide you hate the job, a couple of two-week trips should see you make your money back.

The point is, get offshore experience no matter how short the job is.

If you decide to stick with it, then those little trips will soon give you the currency with which you can pick and choose your jobs. You may also find a platform where you fit right in and they decide to take you on permanently. I got one of my best jobs so far that way. I went on to provide medical cover for 3 weeks and ended up staying 3 years.

The only exception to taking any job regards seasickness. If looking at a duck-pond gets you all green and queasy, stay away from Support Vessels (Dive Ships and Pipe Layers) and FPSOs (Floating Production & Storage Offshore). An FPSO is a converted tanker that stays in one place. I am on one as I write this - the Heave is about 18 meters and we are rolling about 5 degrees to Port and 4 to Starboard. Motion Sickness sufferers beware! Another problem is that those weather conditions meant the helicopter couldn’t land – so I am stuck here for an extra day. It’s somewhat different to missing the half past five bus and having to get the six o’clock one instead!

Other benefits to starting out with an agency is you get to see lots of different installations. No two platforms are the same. Even if two installations are run by the same company, the medic’s job will be subtly different on each one. The experience you will get through this will definitely help you out at some point in your career. Even places I have hated working have taught me one or two useful things (like how to stop rolling from side-to-side in bed during bad weather!)

So hopefully that answers any questions you might have about how to go about following this particular career path. If there’s anything I have missed, or if there is something else you would like to know, just use the feedback form you can find on the Contact Page (http://www.rig-medics.co.uk/pages.contact.html)