Dr Enrico Dippenaar

Enrico is an experienced paramedic and academic who champions out-of-hospital emergency care.

Background

Enrico started his career in emergency services as a Firefighter in Cape Town, South Africa. Through his initial training and contact with emergency care, an immediate interest grew towards paramedicine.

While working as a Firefighter, Enrico's passion to become a paramedic led him to complete further tertiary education and attain the highest clinical level within paramedicine. He worked as an Emergency Care Practitioner and Firefighter for many years until an opportunity presented itself to him in Dubai. There he managed clinic operations for a leading international private healthcare group (Mediclinic) at the prestigious Atlantis resort on the Palm Jumeirah. Further opportunities were presented as he became a medical and rescue flight paramedic for the United Arab Emirates national helicopter search and rescue service. He joined Anglia Ruskin University as a full-time academic for Paramedic Science.

Spoken Languages

• English
• Afrikaans

Research interests

• Emergency Medicine
• Paramedicine
• Out-of-Hospital Emergency Care
• Healthcare Systems and Regulations
• Medical Ethics 

Enrico focuses his interests primarily around emergency medicine in the out-of-hospital setting. These include structures, processes and outcomes in emergency care that are clinical and non-clinical. Matching the needs of the community with the resources available to do the most for the most.

Areas of research supervision

• Developing and validating an MRI and patient factors-based scoring system to predict the operative challenges associated with minimally invasive Total Mesorectal Excision (TME) for patients with rectal cancer.
• Development of a clinical decision-making tool for patients presenting to the ambulance service with hyperventilation.
• Open and distance learning as a design and delivery method of emergency medical training.
• Prehospital healthcare provider’s understanding of their responsibilities towards a mental healthcare user, during the management of a behavioural emergency.
• A private Emergency Centre: a descriptive study of demographics, triage allocations and patient outcomes for 2018.
• A cross-sectional investigation of the management of winter sports injuries in secondary schools within the Gauteng province of South Africa.
• What is the impact of feedback on student learning during CPR training?

Teaching

Enrico involved himself with tutoring and mentoring colleagues from the start of his emergency services career. He taught and examined on a part-time basis at college and university levels in South Africa. He is also a seasoned American Heart Association instructor for all their life support programmes. He now primarily teaches on the Paramedic Science course at ARU, leading research and major project modules.

Qualifications

• PgCert: Learning and Teaching (Higher Education), ARU
• PhD: Emergency Medicine, UCT
• MScMed: Emergency Medicine, UCT
• Dip: Fire Technology, SAESI
• BSc: Emergency Medical Care, CPUT
• NDip: Emergency Medical Care, CPUT

Memberships, editorial boards

• College of Paramedics
• Royal College of Emergency Medicine
• Emergency Medicine Society of South Africa
• Emergency Care Society of South Africa
• International Association of Flight & Critical Care Paramedics
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• Editorial Board Member for International Paramedic Practice

Selected recent publications

• Dippenaar E, Wallis L. (2019) Pre-hospital intercostal chest drains in South Africa: a modified Delphi study. African Journal of Emergency Medicine.
• Dippenaar, E. (2019) Paramedicine for our communities. International Paramedic Practice.
• Dippenaar E, Gangaram P, Alinier G. (2018) Assessment of the Wong-Baker FACES® Pain Rating Scale’s Inter-Rater Reliability when applied to standardised adult patients by paramedics in Qatar: a pilot study. College of Paramedics (UK) National Conference.
• Dippenaar E. (2018) Paramedicine across continents: A paramedic’s lived experience. College of Paramedics (UK) National Conference.
• Reynolds L, Dippenaar E. (2018) How to search the scientific literature. EMS World.
• Dippenaar E, Bruijns S. (2016) Triage is easy, said no triage nurse ever. International Emergency Nursing.

Recent presentations and conferences

• Dippenaar E. (2019) Students and Research: The One without the Other. Trauma Care Conference 2019 – Student Pre-Hospital Programme, United Kingdom.
• Dippenaar E. (2018) Stressful feedback post paramedic simulation training. Assessment in Higher Education conference, United Kingdom.
• Carley S, Stander M, Wylie C, Evans K, Dippenaar E. (2018) Major Incident Management. Brave African Discussions in Emergency Medicine #badEMfest18 conference, South Africa.
• Dippenaar E. (2014) Identifying the role of pre-hospital intercostal chest drains in South Africa. Emergency Care Society of South Africa conference, South Africa.