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5 things I took away from EMS Today

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Last week I attended EMS Today, the National EMS conference in Baltimore that is put on by JEMS every year. The high point of the conference for me was a lecture by Dr. Corey Slovis, and in honor of his lecture style, please allow me to present the 5 things I took away from EMS Today.

1) Plan your time wisely. Between my entire slate Con Ed lectures, time spent wandering through the exhibition hall and the myriad of dinners, lunch, coffee and drinks with friends and associates I didn’t have much down time. Next year, I plan to block out some alone time to decompress a little.

2) Bring a notebook to the presentations. I noticed several people in the audience just passively watching the lectures, which is fine… but if you really want to take anything from the lectures home with you, you need to take notes, even if it’s just to copy the presenter’s email or web address to download the PowerPoint slides when you get home.

3) Prepare to Share. No matter if you paid for the conference yourself or if your service sent you, you should be ready and willing to share some of the material your learned with your fellow coworkers. I don’t mean you should regurgitate a lecture verbatim, but a small presentation at your monthly Con Ed would certainly make you look like you did more than drink in Baltimore and may cement your spot on the trip roster next year.

4) Reach Out. I made it a point to wear a T-shirt or sweatshirt emblazoned with my services logo to the conference every day. Not because I’m a whacker, but because I’m proud of where I work and what I do. I made it a point to talk to people around me in the exhibition hall or in the lecture rooms to introduce myself, find out a little about them and talk about my service. Like many EMS agencies, we’re suffering some staffing issues and if I can make people aware of what we do, how we do it and why we’re a great place to work, we may find a few more qualified applicants to fill our vacancies.

5) Stay social. I found Facebook and Twitter a great way to stay in touch and meet friends that I’d previously only connected with on EMS Forums and through the blog. Justin Schorr, Ted Settla and Kelly Grayson did a great job with this at the conference. The hashtag #EMStoday was seeing a lot of use. If you’re not following your favorite EMS blogger on twitter (@Medic_2_2, hint, hint.) you should do it now.

Posted by on March 4, 2012 • Filed under: EMS, EMS Topics, Training • Tagged: ,

Dave and Tom

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I feel awful about not writing more frequently… but ya know what? This is time I need for myself. I need time to study and learn and process all of the new info that I’m sucking up every day. Just being around the medics I’m working with is great. I’m getting a lot of the nuts and bolts of day-to-day practice almost by osmosis. Just by working with them, and watching how they interact with patients and each other, I’m learning the art of having presence as a medic. And, to a lesser extent, I’m making careful note of the things I’ll never do when I’m a medic. These are valuable lessons my friends.

I’ve been on some excellent calls recently. Calls that I’m sure seem mundane to my preceptors, but present me with a new learning experience every time I step out of the medic unit. Every chest pain call is an opportunity to hone my assessment and interview skills and tighten up my IV skills. I’m working hard on delegating tasks to the EMTs and other medics with me. These guys and gals want me to run the scene and they’re poised, ready to jump when I say the word, all to help me succeed. I just need to tell ‘em what I want. And that’s a little hard, when sometimes I don’t know myself. But I’m getting better.

I made some mistakes over the past few days. I’m moving fast. Sometimes too fast. Going down the checklist in my head at a chest pain call at 2 in the morning…

“Okay, Tom, let’s get this gentleman on the monitor and some O2… Dave, can you grab me another set of vitals while I get the aspirin and nitro?”

Tom, my Medic preceptor, hops right to getting the patient on the monitor and some Os flowing on a cannula while Dave, the Firefighter EMT that’s with me, looks up from his BP cuff and says, “As soon as I’m done here, I’ll go spike a bag for you and set it up in the truck. I’ll make sure to set the nitro next to your IV roll.”

“That’s great, thanks Dave.” I mouth a silent “thank you” in his direction. He winks back.

And don’t think that Tom didn’t catch that. On the way back to the station after that call Tom asks in the headset, “So, how’d you do?”

I review the call in my head before I answer. I had a great rapport with the patient, we were laughing and joking on the way to ED. I did an great Q&A. Got a 12 lead in the first 5 minutes in the door, got ASA on board quickly, got an 18 gauge in the right AC while we were en route…

“Well,” I start.

Before I could go any further, Tom says, “It was pretty nice of Dave to save your ass with the Nitro, huh?”

“Yes. Yes it was.” I answer slowly.

These guys aren’t out to bust my balls. They’re working to make me the very best medic I can be. And I appreciate that. That’s why I don’t mind helping with chores around the fire house or cleaning up after dinner. These guys don’t get paid to teach me. They like teaching. And I appreciate it.

And yeah, I wasn’t gonna give that guy any nitro ‘til I had a line. I know better than that. But Dave was there to back me up.

I love riding with these guys.

Posted by on January 24, 2010 • Filed under: EMS, paramedic, Partners, Training

Three Days of Training

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So, after 30 hours of “training”, I’m being turned loose as a crew member at IFT Ambulance. Of course, I still don’t have my county EMT cert, so I’m relegated to the role of “BLS Driver” until my card shows up. I mentioned in a previous post that I would be able to really get a good read on the company once I got on the road. I was right. Here’s what I found. Training is minimal, morale sucks and with some big exceptions by some outstanding crew members, the overall team level of professionalism is almost non existent.

Over the last three days I was the third rider with an FTO and a different partner every day. The FTO is a really nice guy, about 16 years younger than me, and he’s been working at IFT for a little over a year. His goal is to become a fire fighter and it’s all he can think about. He was recently accepted to Fire Academy and his every waking minute is consumed with studying the IFSTA book to make sure he does well. I remember when I went to fire school to become a FF-I … Gear and hoses and friction coefficients and spanners and SCBA… Wow. It seems like it was a million years ago. He asked me if I ever missed the fire department. I thought about it for a second and said, “Nope.”

See, I look at it like this. I don’t want to be a firefighter; I want to be a paramedic. I really have no interest in learning (or, relearning) the science behind applying wet stuff to hot stuff, and I never did. To me, forcing a paramedic to also become a firefighter is akin to asking an airline pilot to train as a carpenter. Why do we continue to insist that EMS must be a branch of Fire?

Anyway, over the past three days we ran about 5 calls. Some dialysis drops and returns and a hospital discharge. The rest of the time we spent driving and posting. I got to know the local hospitals, dialysis centers and SNFs. On Sunday, I spent almost the entire day in the back of the rig, getting car sick as the driver whipped the truck around like it was a NASCAR qualifier. (You really learn a lot when you ride in the back of the rig and the crew up front ignores you.) On the plus side, I also learned where to find free internet, good coffee and quiet spots to post. As a matter of fact, yesterday we posted in the area of my house and had a zero call day. I studied my anatomy text, the FTO buried his nose in the IFSTA book and our third read sci-fi. We drank coffee and just hung out. Around 4 we radioed to dispatch and asked about anything that might be pending. She had nothing on the docket for us and said, “You guys can just clear and prep for OD (going off duty)”.

Well, alrighty then. 3 days, 30 hours, some practice with the Stryker gurney, an online driving check off and a quick “here’s how to do the paperwork” lecture and I’m free to go. I guess it’s a good thing that I have past EMS experience and I kind of know what I’m doing, otherwise it would have been a Charlie Foxtrot. It seems like there’s no standardized training plan for new hires that actually cover all of the stuff one needs to know. Rather, it was the “oh yeah, you should know that… glad you reminded me” kind of training. Of course, my FTO just turned in his letter of resignation, so he had a few other things on his mind. He’s going to work for another company on a CCT rig and I think he’ll be happier. More pay, more experience, closer to home and as he put it, “I can drive code!”

Being a 38 year old surrounded by a crew of 22 year old EMTs is certainly an enlightening experience. The lack of professionalism and displays of inappropriate behavior are just amazing. I’m no prude, but I do know what’s right and what’s wrong and a lot of the stuff that’s going on at IFT when there’s no sup around is really wrong. Well, I’ll just keep my nose clean and make sure I do the best I can to keep the patients safe. I don’t know if the managers know what’s going on and turn a blind eye or they’re just oblivious. I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough.

Posted by on January 21, 2009 • Filed under: EMT, FTO, new hire, Training