As you remember from my last post, recently, I have seen an increased interest in a lot of the blog posts and articles that I’ve been sharing with some of my coworkers. Now, here I was on a Sunday evening with our Training Coordinator sitting in front of my computer. I went straight to http://www.levelzeromovie.com Ever since Ted Setla released his documentary about Alameda County EMS, I’ve been trying to find some way to work it into sharing it with as many employees as I could. He paints the providers in the movie as true professionals who love their jobs. Their messages and words of wisdom are so powerful and should be heard and understood by anyone who is trying to get into this field. After showing him the Level Zero trailer, I told Dave that I thought that this would be a great way to spend 20 minutes of our New Employee Academy. He liked what he saw, and liked what he had heard, and told me that if I could get him access to it and permission from Ted to use it, he’d be happy to include it. Well, 20 minutes later, after a brief conversation with Ted, I had everything lined up and ready to go for the premier of Level Zero at my company. Monday morning, I was still handing out a few copies of Steve Whitehead’s Blog Posts. People were reading them and saying, “Wow, yeah, that makes sense.” Or “that’s the exact problem that we’re having here!” Eyes were starting to open. At 9am, I walked into our daily management meeting, laptop in hand. After we had gone through the regular business, I looked at a few other members of the management team. “Can I borrow you guys for 20 minutes?” Three of them agreed to stick around, and I fired up my Netbook, and started streaming Level Zero for them. To say that the reactions that I got from them were positive would be an understatement. Not only were they impressed with the quality of the production, but they loved the message behind it all. They loved how the providers were portrayed not only as EMTs and...

Earlier this year, Steve Whitehead and Natalie Quebuedeaux coined the phrase “Make your own Thunder.” It has quickly become one of my favorite phrases. Here’s my story, broken down into two parts, about the rumbles that I’ve created over the last week. . . For the last couple of years, I’ve been a member of the National EMS Management Association (NEMSMA) List Serv through Google. It’s a hotbed of conversation and information about the industry, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in furthering their career in EMS. Quite often, I would find posts or articles that seemed very relevant to the issues faced within my company, so I would copy and paste like mad to some of my colleagues, hoping that it would have some impact. This practice increased ten fold this past February when I became involved in the Social Media movement in EMS. As I have read more blogs, I’ve grown more and more excited about the information that had been right under my nose. Who would have thought that there were so many people out there with the same ideas and motivations that I had? Quite often, I would send the copied and pasted articles and links out, and I wouldn’t really hear back from anyone. I knew a few people read them, but I never really got much feedback about what they were reading. In the last week, that changed. It all started last Wednesday when I got an email from one of my main “targets” of all of my forwards, our Operations Manager. It asked a simple question: “Can you send me the links to what you read and listen to?” I was really excited, and I got right to work. I started going through my bookmarks, sharing every podcast, blog, and publication that I frequent. While he is a very open minded guy, and thinks along the same track that I do, here was my chance to really open up his eyes to what was out there. By Friday, I had already received a number of links from him pointing out articles and posts that he really liked. By Sunday, he had sent out an email...

Last night was a big night for me. It started out with the opportunity to participate in a great Podcast hosted by one Kyle David Bates called The First Few Moments. If you haven’t checked it out yet, please do so. It’s got some great information about dealing with issues such as triage, treatment, and management of the critical first minutes of a scene. That was followed by the 100th episode of EMS Garage. Not only was I able to listen to the show, but I was actually on it too. Like I told Chris Montera, the show’s host, “Being on the Garage for me was like being a fan that is plucked out of the crowd and put on the court.” It was a great experience, and I am extremely grateful. I finished the night catching up with Ms. Paramedic and Jeramedic over Skype. If you haven’t heard of them, check them out on their many projects: The Gen Med Show, Mutual Aid, and their personal blogs to name a few. I had a great discussion with Jeramedic about some of the recent events here in Massachusetts. As many of you know, my wonderful Commonwealth has been in the news quite a bit over the last few months, first for the more than 200 EMTs who have had their certifications suspended, and more recently, the law that was signed in by Governor Deval Patrick making the minimum staffing for an ALS Ambulance one Paramedic and one EMT. Previously, it was two Paramedics, and if a service wanted to run with anything less, they would have to obtain a waiver from their Region. The President of the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts has expressed his concerns for this proposed minimal staffing change by saying that “People are going to die because of this law.” In my opinion, that assessment of the new law is a touch dramatic. There are many, many systems across the country of a variety of sizes that staff with a “one and one” standard. So the question was raised: “Is more less?” Does the presence of more Paramedics mean the deterioration of one single Paramedic’s skills? I was excited to...

For the month of July, I was selected to host The Handover, an EMS Blog Carnival. The topic I chose to tackle? The Crisis Patient. Not a day goes by where I don’t have to deal with a psych crisis patient. They’re out there, we all run into them, and the training that we get to be able to deal with them is minimal. Focus moves towards ACS patients, strokes, respiratory patients, or trauma scenarios. While treatment of these patients is usually rather involved, it takes the focus away from our less acute crisis patients, which are viewed as more routine, and easy to care for. They are, however, far from either of those descriptions. Take a read through the blogs below. Chances are you’ll see a situation that you’ve been through in the past. The Insomniac Medic shares the story about an encounter with a patient where a special bond was created, and because of it he was able to get his crisis patient the help that he very much needed. The Happy Medic dug into the archives for his contribution to this month’s Handover. He’s asked by the Police Department to help remove someone that many of us have encountered: a horder. Physically, she’s fine. Mentally, she’s competent, but sometimes we are forced to make decisions in the best interest of our patients. Our friend over at Paramedic Pulp Fiction takes the time to talk to his already restrained crisis patient, and takes the easier, less forceful way out. Taking this approach not only made his job easier, but could potentially make things easier on the next crew that encounters this guy. Often times, its important that the provider takes control when dealing with a crisis patient. Over at Street Watch, we get to hear a story from 2006 about a rather large crisis patient with the potential to escalate a situation to a physical level. He remains in complete control of his scene and his patient, but he gives her the chance to feel like she’s in control with a few simple actions: letting her have a cigarette and giving her simple choices about how care is provided to her. Our...

With all of the writing I’ve done today, this week should be a pretty busy week atEMSin the New Decade.I’m waiting on submissions for my topic for The Handover, the topic of which can be read here.Also, I’ve got a two part post almost completed about the Massachusetts EMT Recertification scandal that is currently taking place.I thought though, on this Sunday, which is supposed to be a day of rest, that I would start things off on a lighter note. Jeramedic called me out in one of his blog posts.The question was, “What reading material do you keep next to the toilet?”I don’t know exactly how this thread started, but from what I’ve researched, it seems that all of it goes back to TheHappyMedic.Thanks, Justin! So when I “sat down” before, I took inventory of my library that would most certainly be flagged in an episode of Seinfeld.Here’s what I found JEMS — If you work in this field, chances are you have at least one copy lying around the bathroom somewhere.My current selection is the 2010 200 City Survey edition.There are some great articles in that one.I highly recommend it. PC Gamer — There are a few month’s worth of this magazine hanging out in the rack.Its my guilty pleasure, and my hobby when I don’t really feel like heading out to face the world.That’s right, folks.MedicSBK is a gamer! Cowboy in the City — This is a book aboutEMSin the area where I practice.The writing style is. . . unique to say the least.I’m not sure about the overall message of it, but I’ll usually read a page or two here and there. The trusty iPhone! — When all else fails, chances are my iPhone is nearby.Not only does this give me plenty of websites to tackle, but I will admit there has been the occasional Tweet (or as I believe its called Shweet) that goes out, but you’ll never know which ones those are! Muahahahahahaha! So there you have it!Plenty of reading material to keep me occupied.Seeing as how everyone who I would call out on this one has already written some great articles about this same topic, I guess I...