Doctor / Private Physician

You are a fully registered doctor living on board a large yacht, usually 80m and above, where the owner wants proper medical cover wherever the boat goes. That can mean a remote anchorage in Indonesia, a winter in the Antarctic or a crossing with days between ports. You are the first and often the only clinician for the principal, their family, guests and a crew of 30 to 80. Some posts are attached to the family rather than the vessel and move with them ashore.

Day to day the work is a mix of general practice, preventive care and readiness. You run crew clinics for cuts, infections, back pain and seasickness, manage the principal's chronic conditions with their specialists, and keep the ship's hospital stocked, in date and legally compliant with flag state medical stores rules. You train crew in first aid and drills, review dive and watersports plans, and hold the controlled drugs register. Discretion matters as much as clinical skill. Medical records stay strictly confidential.

When something serious happens you stabilise the patient, liaise with telemedical services such as Radio Medical or a contracted provider, and arrange evacuation with the captain by tender, helicopter or air ambulance. You plan ahead for every itinerary, mapping the nearest hospitals, hyperbaric chambers and evacuation routes. Emergency medicine, anaesthetics, general practice or pre-hospital experience is the usual background. Most yacht doctors keep their home registration and revalidation current while on rotation.