Today on the Pre-Hospital Care Podcast, the discussion opens with a critical question: why do even highly trained clinicians struggle to perform under pressure, and what can be done about it? To explore this, we are joined by Dr Stephen Hearns, a globally respected clinician, educator, and author whose work bridges emergency medicine, human performance science, and high-stakes decision-making.

Stephen is a consultant in emergency and aeromedical retrieval medicine and played a central role in developing Scotland’s Emergency Medical Retrieval Service (EMRS), a government-funded critical care retrieval organisation delivering advanced pre-hospital care to major trauma patients and those with complex critical illness in remote environments.

Drawing on his book Peak Performance Under Pressure, Stephen examines the cognitive and behavioural factors that influence performance in extreme conditions. This episode focuses on practical strategies, including mental rehearsal, shared mental models, and cognitive aids, and how these translate into sharper decision-making and improved outcomes in real-world pre-hospital care.

Further reading relevant to this episode from Stephen can be found here:
https://corecognition.co.uk/blog/the-arc-of-performance

Learn more about Core Cognition:
https://corecognition.co.uk/

This episode is sponsored by PAX: The gold standard in emergency response bags.

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