Christoph Redelsteiner Honoured for Life’s Work
UAS Academic Director Christoph Redelsteiner Receives Camillo Award
Yesterday evening, the Bundesverband Rettungsdienst (BVRD.at) recognised extraordinary achievements of paramedics for the second time by awarding the Camillo Award at the Rooftop Foyer of the Parliament in the Vienna Hofburg. This time around, there was also a life’s work award. The recipient was UAS Academic Director Christoph Redelsteiner.
The Bundesverband Rettungsdienst (BVRD) and its cooperation partners award the prize to professional and volunteer workers in the preclinical field who are particularly committed to its quality development.
The life’s work award, which was awarded for the first time this year, went to Christoph Redelsteiner. A second-level medical emergency technician and a social worker, he heads the master degree programme Social Work of the St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences. He was also actively involved in the development of the degree programme Healthcare and Nursing and the further education programme Preclinical Treatment and Care
“Thanks to his expertise, Christoph Redelsteiner has played a key role in shaping the St. Pölten UAS by advancing training in Social Work and Preclinical Treatment and Care and furthering the exchange between social work and the healthcare system, which has become increasingly important in recent years. His comprehensive and impressive work in the emergency service clearly demonstrates that the award went to the right person”, says UAS Executive Director Gernot Kohl.
Career in Emergency Medical Service and Social Work
Redelsteiner is one of the initiators and founders of the predecessor association of the BVRD.at and brought certified and internationally recognised course formats to Austria. He started his career in the emergency medical service in 1984 when he did his community service in lieu of military service with the Samariterbund St. Pölten and his career in higher education when starting his studies of Social Work. He completed a paramedics study programme in Atlanta (USA) and worked as a flight paramedic. Among other things, Redelsteiner worked as quality manager and head of emergency medical services at the Red Cross Vienna. Since 2010, he has been a professor at the St. Pölten UAS. In addition, he teaches in the study programme Medical Emergency Service Management at the Danube University Krems.
Christoph Redelsteiner has been promoting the idea of preclinical further development and improvement of paramedics training for years and is still active in the emergency medical service and as a second-level medical emergency technician in various organisations. He is a paramedic instructor and teaches in course formats of the BVRD.at; he also works as second-level medical emergency technician authorised to perform intubation.
Many of Redelsteiner’s projects are dedicated to collaboration at the interface of social work, emergency medical service, and care-related and psychosocial support. BVRD president Erwin Feichtelbauer honoured Redelsteiner’s manifold achievements in his laudatory speech. He probably made the biggest impacts through his initiative to let laypeople use defibrillators without training and install the devices in public space.