Hope in the Future of EMS Providers - #NCEMSF

Sunday, February 26, 2012, Inner Harbor, Baltimore MD
So, I haven't been able to kick off this blog like I wanted, nor on the topic I wanted to focus on, but that will come soon I certainly hope.  Meanwhile, and a little on topic, I wanted to share an outstanding opportunity I had this past weekend.  For the second year, I was invited to be a presenter at the National Collegiate EMS Foundation's National Conference.   Their 19th Annual conference was held this year in the Inner Harbor, Baltimore Maryland.  Wow. What a great event.  Nearly 1,000 young EMS providers from as far away as California, Arizona, Texas, Maine & Vermont, and yes, even Canada.  So, what does this have anything to do with Incident Management? Well, glad you asked.

Last year, I presented a program "CHAOS; the first 5 minutes of a MCI response", and had standing room only.  These college EMS providers I quickly learned really want to get into not only just the EMS care, but also the management of such events.  We followed that up with a tabletop MCI exercise, that again, was sold out.

Well, this year I struggled to figure out what this group would want to hear about.  I settled on talking a little about Hurricane Irene, and how EMS responded, how they asked for help, where the help came from, and the actions taken by the helping units.  We focused on the EMAC request system, and help that Pennsylvania EMS agencies provided in the State of New Jersey, and the FEMA Ambulance Contract that was enacted to assist the State of New York. 

Following this session, RVESCUE held a tabletop exercise to once again help walk these future leaders through discussions and plans of what they would do when notified that 15,000 guests, and 250 invalid patients where coming to be housed on their campus as an evacuation and reception location.  They all did stellar!  From large schools such as Texas A&M and Penn State, to smaller schools such as Norwich University and College of Charleston, all the participants discussed how they would respond, support and recover from such an influx of evacuees onto their school system.

One honor I had this year was when I was asked to be one of the judges for the Physio EMS Skills Competition.  As a judge for the BLS Skills competition, I had the opportunity to see 20+ schools test their skills in response to a "Trauma Patient", or a 20 year old male party-goer at a frat house party, that ended up getting stabbed 3 times, falling down a flight of stairs, while wearing a set of football shoulder pads and helmet, at 2am.  (Nope... there was no alcohol on board.... OK, I'm lying on that one).  The teams for the most part did better than many of the well-experienced EMS providers I come in contact with on an everyday basis.  Heck, I think I learned a thing or two myself, which is why I love doing these things.  The youthfulness of these teams, while working as a team of 4 rescuers, showed that there is hope for tomorrows EMT program.  I also got to see some of the regional differences between what a "Basic-EMT" is all about.  Vermont, you guys kicked some but as the most advanced EMT-Basics I've ever experienced; while UCLA knew how to kick that command and control function all over the map, to the Southern Florida team showing that in the south, not all things move slow!

While at the competition, my fellow judge and I heard some awesome quotes; just some of which I can share here:

Loyola Marymount University / LA County
Student EMS competes

-Team 1: When given 1 minute to review the EMS supplies they would have to use in their response, the team lead was heard saying "I'm NOT touching that thing" when he saw the HARE Traction Splint!

-Team 2: When assessing for patient awareness: "Do you know what color school buses are"; to which our outstanding patient responded: "Well, that depends what state you are in, duh... are you stupid? Safety Yellow, unless your somewhere where they are a different color!"

University of Southern Florida
Team goes to work

-Team 3 (and several others): "Sir, why are you wearing football shoulder pads?".... "Well DUH, why aren't YOU?  Its That Type Of Party!".

-Team 4: "I have my BIC pen and pocket knife - Ready to decompress that chest"..... BLS provider offering a little humor to the sucking chest wound. (Our patient did seem scared there)

-Team 5: "OK, sir, I need you to calm your breathing down (28 x per minute).  I want you to count down from 5 thousand with me then take a deep breath".... our patient responded: "Damn, that's gonna take us a long ass time".

MCI Event "Frat Party Gone Boom"
test MCI skills. UCLA EMS
won top spot.

Well, that's just a small sampling.  Later in the evening (well past my normal bedtime), the top 6 teams in the Trauma section competed in a "Frat Party gone bad".  The party had a sick student, which then lead to a campus EMS response.  Shortly after their arrival to a very party-going bunch of frat house boys from John Hopkins, another less-then-stellar-citizen ran his car into the responding crew and frat-house, and exploded.  Death and mayhem ensued.  As a judge, it was near impossible to even hear what was happening with all the cheering of the other teams in the room routing for their favorite teams (Note, I was representing the team from ASU - right side of photo - , who was not able to compete this year).

After the 2 days of non-stop activities, I was continually impressed by the attendees dedication to this event.  In most conferences I attend these days, sessions early in the morning, right after lunch, and late afternoon seem to lose their attendees, as those attending find other things to occupy their time.  Not here at the NCEMSF Conference.  Students arrived early, even after a full night (and morning) of interacting with other schools, and stayed late into the night for all sessions.  Between the break-out sessions, there was no stopping them.  Huddles of teams sharing what they just learned, figuring out who was going where next, and what it all meant to their own schools, was rampant throughout the halls.

Chief Sean McMullen, SEMS ASU
presents at the 19th Annual NCEMSF
Conference in Baltimore MD

During all of this, students selected in a competitive application process, presented their speeches as part of a Student Presenter program.  My friend Chief Sean McMullen of the Student EMS at Arizona State University ended up as the winner of this years program. Congrats Chief! Proud of you and your team, for not only what you do there at ASU, but yes, for all the support you are showing for the start up team of your FRIENDS at University of Arizona, under the direction of Chief Justin Friedenthal, who open their service on March 1st!

Saturday night brought on a break from the learning, and an opportunity for some fun aboard the Spirit of Baltimore in the Inner Harbor.  The NCEMSF Casino opened up at 10pm for a few hours of "fake money" gambling, with tables quickly filling up with black-jack, poker, craps and roulette games with waiting lines.  Again, it was awesome to see school rivalries at work... even over a craps table.  Heck, I even met three New Jersey EMS providers from schools across the Country, yep, while playing my favorite game of Craps. 

Well, Sunday led to a more sessions, and more break outs, followed up by a remarkable, thought-provoking wrap up speech.  Then the long trip home for all the attendees. I know for this one participant that not only did I learn allot, and catch up with some good old friends, and made many more new ones, but I became once again invigorated by the fact that there is hope for tomorrow's providers; and many of tomorrow's leaders of EMS will no doubt come from this team of 1,000 of Americas Youth EMS providers.  Congrats to all, and can't wait to do it all over again at the 20th Anniversary Convention in Washington DC next year!

For more information on the NCEMSF, please visit their website at http://www.ncemsf.org .  The writer is a proud new Life Member of NCEMSF!

Congratulations to the Student EMS System at University of Arizona,
who will be starting up their service this Thursday, March 1, 2012, under the
direction of a great group of dedicated students.

Welcome to my new blog

So, recent events have caused me to look at yet another way to "Get The Good Word" out.  I've decided to try the world of "Blogging" as they call it.  Wait... Blog?  What is a blog?  I have no clue, but its been in our vocabulary for the past few years.  Heck, my Uncle has used Blogging to keep the family up to date for several years; why not me?  Authors use Blogs for other ways of publishing their words. 

For the past 10 years, I've been working on improving my own understanding of the Nation's Incident Management System, also known as a project management and/or "org-chart" system in the corporate world, through education, research, more education, seminars, and yes, good old practice!  I'll admit, I learn something every single day!  Those who say they don't need to learn anything else are full of themselves, and a few other things we won't mention here. 

I also realize that while I've had the honor and privilege to participate in so many wonderful (and some horrible) incidents, classes and experiences, not everyone has had this same opportunities afforded to them.  By using this media, my Incident Management - One Step at a Time blog, I'll attempt to help spread some of those good lessons learned to even more folks.  This will also allow me to talk about my failures along the way. 

LEGAL DISCLOSURE NOTICE: Let me also be very clear, right up front and once and for all...... The opinions and comments that I make here in my blog, only represent me, myself and I, unless otherwise noted.  They do not represent any of my past, present or future employers, employees, co-workers.  If you have a problem, it is me speaking, no one else.  If you don't like what you're reading, there are 2 buttons.  An unsubscribe and delete.  Feel free to use either one as you so choose. 

Hopefully once a week, as time allows, I'll get something up.  I hope that those that follow this blog will offer me suggestions on what you would like to see or learn about. 

Be Safe - Manage Incidents One Step at a Time!