Lessons to Learn from the Founder of the World’s First Air Ambulance

The story of the world’s first air ambulance is pretty interesting & holds some important lessons for innovators & disruptors today. I will run through the history briefly and dwell more on the lessons to be learnt.

In 1917,John Flynn received an inspirational letter from Lieutenant Clifford Peel, a Victorian medical student with an interest in aviation. The young airman and war hero suggested the use of aviation to bring medical help to the Outback. Shot down in France, he died at just 24 years of age and never knew that his letter became a blueprint for the creation of the Flying Doctor Service.

Convincing political leaders that this new technology (flying machines now known as planes), that had never been used outside the military, could be used to save lives in the outback; reducing the need to build new hospitals, reducing the cost of healthcare to government was a hard sell for Flynn. Especially since he was not a subject matter expert. He wasn’t a doctor or a pilot. He was a pastor!

They initially dismissed him.

But he persevered. Looking at data from wars. French records from 1901 indicated that the mortality rate of the injured was reduced from 60% to just under 10% if soldiers were evacuated by air.

Long story cut short, a pastor started the first air ambulance in the entire world in 1928. The medical community that may have initially scoffed at the idea became his greatest allies.

He was recently honored by the government of Australia. His photo is on the $20 note in Australia.

Now for the lessons for young people in Nigeria today, many of whom are in the same position as Flynn, seeing a massive problem, but lacking the resources and perhaps feeling like they don’t have the subject matter expertise/experience? Sound familiar?

Here are somethings that struck me:

Lesson 1: Write with conviction. Tell stories that matter.

Remember Lieutenant Clifford Peel, the young medical student interested in aviation?

He wrote to Flynn suggesting the air ambulance idea…it was just a random musing that perhaps he didn’t expect to go anywhere.

But he took action. He wrote. And even though he died before the idea that he gave Flynn came to fruition, his words lived on through that letter.

His name become part of global healthcare history because of that letter! Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity.

Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt & to humble.

So, write that letter/email/whastapp/business plan/article today!

Lesson 2: Subject matter expertise

Many people think that in order to help solve a certain problem that you need to be a subject matter expert. But this isn’t always true.

If you have the vision you can engage partners that have the technical skills.

Flynn was a Pastor…..but he started a service that was so cutting edge and virtually unthinkable over 100 years ago.

As I wrote in my article ‘Is the new CBN deputy governor qualified for the job?’:

‘The public sector needs to stop expecting leaders to be technical experts and start expecting them to be leadership experts’

Furthermore:

‘In a world where data, advice and expertise from all over the world abounds, we need strategic pragmatists that can make sense of it all’

Lesson 3: It won’t happen overnight.

It’s unrealistic to think that you will ‘hammer’ in the space of a few months. Flynn worked for 10 whole years to get this project off the ground.

Lesson 4: Relationships matter.

Poverty isn’t only a lack of financial resources. It’s isolation from the kind of people who can help you make more of yourself. So treat people well, build bonds, serve.

Lesson 5: It may not be as sophisticated as you want when you start.

If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late

— Reid Hoffman

The first pilot, Arthur Affleck, had no navigational aids, only a compass. He also flew in an open cockpit, fully exposed to the weather, behind the doctor’s cabin. Fuel supplies were also carried on flights.

Today however, the Flying Doctor Service of Australia is one of the largest & most comprehensive aeromedical organizations in the world with 70 aircraft.

Transports 177 patients per day, over 5000 patients per month and over 60,000 per year.

They flew 26,412,555 kilometers just last year. That’s the equivalent of 34 trips to the moon and back, or more than 600 flights around the Earth.

This is MANY billions of dollars cheaper than building & staffing thousands more large, sophisticated tertiary hospitals within an hour of each other across the country. And leaves more resources available to focus on primary care.

Lesson 6: You have to look back to connect the dots.

Steve Jobs made this point so powerfully in his Stanford Commencement Speech. “

You cannot connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.

So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect to your future.”

You can read Flynn’s full story here https://www.flyingdoctorsnigeria.com/2019/08/22/how-john-peels-letter-led-to-one-of-the-worlds-first-air-ambulance-services/