EMS Health & Safety

In this week’s episode of Inside EMS, co-host Chris Cebollero and I welcome Dr. David Tan, President-Elect of NAEMSP, to talk about his organization’s endorsement of the latest guidance from the American College of Medical Toxicology and the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology on occupational exposure to fentanyl and fentanyl analogues. That document, in addition to being endorsed by NAEMSP, ...

… there’s a new column up on EMS1. Stop bragging about your emotional pain, instead be proud of overcoming it. Enjoy, and share with your friends.

In this week’s episode of Inside EMS, researcher and EMS1 columnist Catherine Counts joins us at the Guest Table to discuss fatigue in EMS, and the recent BMJ Review on the effects of shift work on sleep duration and quality. Give us a listen, and share your thoughts.

Had a close call last week. My partner and I were headed back to our station in the wee hours of the morning, following a section of Interstate industrial loop known for traffic accidents. It’s a pretty bad piece of road, sweeping curve coming off a steep bridge, and the streetlights don’t really illuminate the area very well. The curve ...

In this week’s episode of Inside EMS, co-host Chris Cebollero and I discuss the merits of the hybrid, flipped EMS classroom, legislation recognizing PTSD as an occupational illness, and ketamine use guidelines. Give us a listen, and share your thoughts.

… there’s a new column up on EMS1. Developing emotional resiliency means sometimes you have to make friends with your ghosts. Read, enjoy, opine.  

On this week’s episode of Inside EMS, co-host Chris Cebollero and I discuss the chicken or egg question: does crappy reimbursement drive shoddy training and educational standards, or do we get reimbursed poorly because we’re content with being a bunch of barely educated skills monkeys? We also discuss the recent murder of a Pulaski County, Arkansas EMT by a patient, ...

In this week’s episode of Inside EMS, co-host Chris Cebollero and I welcome John Kustuch to the Guest Table as we talk about ambulance accidents and what we can do to lessen the likelihood of them.* Give us a listen and share your thoughts on the issue.     *Spoiler Alert: Stopping driving like adrenaline-fueled idiots would help a lot.

In this week’s episode of Inside EMS, co-host Chris Cebollero and I welcome Sarah Mielke to the Guest Table to talk about the new Emotional Trauma Life Support course. This is a course that we’ve needed for a while, and I can’t wait to take it and start teaching it. Give us a listen to learn more about it.

In this week’s episode of Inside EMS, Fit Responder President and EMS1 columnist Bryan Fass tells us about the five food evils. They’re five common foods that provide little nutritional value and should be eliminated from our diets. Perhaps not coincidentally, they are five foods that feature prominently in my diet. You should really check out Bryan’s column. He’s got ...

In this week’s episode of Inside EMS, co-host Chris Cebollero and I discuss the recent suicide of a Pennsylvania EMT, and how we might better support our colleagues with PTSD and depression. In our Guest Table segment, we talk with Donnie Richard of Brattleboro Retreat and their Uniformed Services Program aimed at specialized mental health counseling tailored to military and ...

In this week’s episode of Inside EMS, co-host Chris Cebollero and I discuss the latest EMS news and events, including violence against EMS providers and the case of a Texas ambulance crew wrecking when the driver fell asleep at the wheel. We’d like to hear your opinion: Is it time to end 48-hour shifts? If you work them and like ...

A lot of Facebook friends have shared this video with me: If I ever had a partner who drove like that, especially with me and a patient in back, I’d whip his ass in the ambulance bay as soon as we cleared the patient off our stretcher. From the Jalopnik article: For ambulance drivers, the route back to the hospital ...

Paramedic Greg Turner of Edmonton took his life on-duty on January 26. Last weekend, paramedic Debbie Crawford of Denver Health Paramedics took her life as well, mere hours after working a fatal train vs pedestrian accident. Debbie co-founded and chaired a committee aimed at helping paramedics deal with PTSD and depression, yet for her, even those resources were not enough. ...

In last week’s episode of Inside EMS, co-host Chris Cebollero and I discuss the EMS news, and welcome fitness expert Bryan Fass to the show, where he provides some healthy eating tips aimed at EMS providers. If you’re like me, and struggle (fail, in my case) to maintain a healthy lifestyle while working on an ambulance, these are tips you ...