A doctor between the sky and the mountains

"Mountain medicine is here with everything. Instruments don't take pictures in the cold, it's hard to tell the colour of the face through the bloody wounds. I only check the patient's condition by feeling the pulse with my cramped fingers," Kristina Höschlová describes the difficult moments of working as a doctor in snowdrifts.

Kristina Höschlová (*1979) is a Czech physician and paramedic specialising in anaesthesiology and emergency and mountain medicine. After graduating from medical school, she worked in a Prague trauma centre and ambulance service, was with Doctors Without Borders in Afghanistan and for several winter seasons worked as an emergency doctor for the Mont Blanc Helicopteres air ambulance service in Avoriaz in the French Alps. She describes her thrilling experiences with the mountain air rescue service and the path that led her to this job in the book Doctor Between the Sky and the Mountains.