Administration & Leadership

In the recent mass stabbing at Lone Star College in Harris County, TX, fourteen people were transported to local hospitals by EMS. A blog reader pointed me to the CNN.com story on the event, and the associated photo gallery. There are a couple of video clips, as well. You EMS folks, go look at the photos and video, and come ...

While the IT geeks may call it Scaleable Model Architecture for CSS, Dave Statter refers to it as Social Media-Assisted Career Suicide Syndrome. And I gotta tell ya, there are  lot of EMS folks on the Internet who, if not actively trying to commit career suicide, are definitely sending out cries for help. There was Captain Greg Not So Smart ...

Protocols are intended to be an organized framework for delivering care. Written well, they are a floor, ensuring that even the least competent medic in your system delivers the same basic care as your best medic. Written poorly, they are a ceiling, forcing the best medic in your system to render care on a par with the least competent one. ...

An excellent explanation as to why bad ideas and outdated concepts persist in EMS organizational culture.

I don't do this often, so listen up. Here are my endorsements for the upcoming NAEMT elections:

For many years, fire departments (many, but not all), have had their capabilities rated by the Insurance Services Office. These ratings, formally referred to as Public Protection Classifications,  graded fire departments on a set of standardized benchmarks on such things as response times, coverage area size, water pressure, number of hydrants, etc., as well as proficiency in the technical aspects ...

I find it fascinating to chat with EMS colleagues around the globe. It’s an eye-opening experience, seeing how other countries approach the provision of Emergency Medical Services; who does it better, who does it worse, who has practices we’d do well to emulate, who could learn a few lessons from the American model. One of the neatest things is discovering ...

A few months back, I engaged in a bit of trollery on Facebook and here on the blog when I asked readers to defend or refute the following statement: "Nobody in EMS is paid what they're worth. 25% are paid far less than what they're worth, and 75% are paid far more than what they're worth." The statement was in ...

To hell with the 3 nitro rule, let's figure out a way to give nitro via in-line nebulizer attached to our CPAP masks.

… there's a new column up on EMS1.com. Enjoy.

I'm glad that NAEMT is out there diligently representing my interests, a full three months after the May 15 deadline that FICEMS imposed for stakeholers to offer their input. I appreciate the sentiment, really, but that does about as much good as plastering a Ron Paul bumper sticker on your car six months after Obama took the oath of office.

Responsibility upward is what makes the rank system work. Without it, your troops may be obedient, but they'll never be motivated.

In his post on calling a sow's ear a silk purse the "rebranding" of the District of Columbia Fire Department – er, excuse me, that's DC Fire/Emergency Medical Services, or DC FEMS for short – TOTWTYTR points out that while the name has changed, the culture there is just as toxic as ever: "About 20 years ago a fire fighter ...

One of the most ludicrous assertions in the endless Nursing vs EMS debate is that paramedics are somehow more skilled than nurses. It's simply not true, and just as insulting to the nursing profession as it is to us when some snurse calls us ambulance drivers. I've lamented before on the skills-centric thinking endemic in EMS, and how it holds ...

The Borg has a progressive disciplinary policy on absenteeism and tardiness. If you no-show a shift, you get suspended for up to three days. The second time it happens in the next 12 calendar months, you get fired. If you're tardy, you get a written warning on the first occurrence, a one-day suspension on the second, and termination on the ...