Inside the life of a racing medical doctor with Camilla Sofia Perego
- Martina Bevini
- 28 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care resident doctor Camilla Sofia Perego’s passion for motorsport brings her trackside at two historic European circuits, playing a (literally) vital part in the sport.
“I grew up next to the Monza circuit,” Camilla tells Females in Motorsport. “Almost every weekend, I could hear the sound of engines right outside my window. It was hard not to become a motorsport fan.”
But motorsport wasn’t her only passion growing up. Since she was a child, she was deeply fascinated by medicine: she always knew she wanted to be a doctor.
As a teenager, she started volunteering as a first responder with a medical volunteering organisation. One weekend, she was assigned to work with the volunteer medical team during a race at Monza: she immediately fell in love with this world, and with the more fast-paced side of medical care. It was at Monza that, a few years later, she met the Chief Medical Officer of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, and got the chance to join the medical team at the historic Belgian circuit.
During the week, Camilla is an Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care resident. On race weekends, she works in the medical centre in Monza, while in Spa she is trackside as an extrication doctor.
“In the medical centre we have a small ‘control room’,” she says, “from which we monitor the whole track throughout all sessions. If anything happens, we can follow the trackside medical procedures and assess the situation before the driver is brought in.”
Trackside, in the extrication team, the work is quite different.
“When there is an accident,” she says, “we get notified via radio. And if we’re told to intervene, we need to get there fast.”
On the site of the accident, in a split second, the team has to check the conditions of both the driver and the car, choose the safest way to proceed, and do it. And there’s no time to make a mistake.
“In all rescue procedures,” she says, “it is vital to immobilise the driver’s neck. To transport them safely we use equipment like a neck brace and a spinal board, but during the extrication itself I have to immobilise it by hand.”
If the driver is conscious, the team either extract the whole seat, for example in single seaters, or use specific tools to get the driver out safely. It can take a few minutes, but this is what’s usually done in minor accidents, when a few minutes won’t really make a difference.
“But if the driver is unconscious,” she says, “we have no time to lose. We need to get them out and start reanimating them as soon as we can. We undo the seatbelts, remove whatever components may be in the way, like the steering wheel, and slip the driver out of the car. In most cases, it takes less than 10 seconds.”
Knowing that every single moment counts, it could be easy to find oneself overwhelmed. However, that isn’t really an issue for Camilla: in stressful situations, that’s actually when she works at her best.
“Sometimes,” she says, “the pressure does get to you, though. What helps me is to remind myself I’m not working by myself, but as part of a team.”
Over the years, more and more safety measures have been implemented, in both cars and rescue protocols, to make motorsport safer. Most accidents result in more or less minor injuries, or, in the best cases, with the driver coming out unscathed.
But, no matter how many safety measures are in place, motorsport is still dangerous, and we still see severe accidents on track.
“Working trackside,” Camilla says, “is completely different from working in the hospital.
“In the hospital, almost none of the patients are there because they willingly did something that brought them there. They didn’t choose to be there.
“Drivers are perfectly aware of the risk they’re taking, and they choose to accept that. When they get injured, or worse, they knew it could happen.
“Working in intensive care, losing a patient is something that I’m very familiar with. But when a driver is brought into the medical centre in critical conditions after a bad crash, maybe a teenager with their whole life ahead of them, you know they knew this could happen. You do everything you can to save them, but sometimes that’s not enough, and that’s absolutely devastating.”
But, after all, the grief and the heartbreak are part of the job. It does get difficult sometimes, but it’s also incredibly rewarding. Plus, as a motorsport fan, getting to work that close to the cars and the racing is an incredible experience.
“What really got me passionate about intensive care in the first place,” she says, “is the chance to help people when they are at the most vulnerable, critical stage of their life. And I get to do it on track, where I love it the most.”
All images courtesy of Camilla Sofia Perego.