The EMS Roundtable

What does it mean to have an Organizational Vision Statement? One of the questions I tend to ask my peers is what is your department’s vision statement? More often than not the answer is “I don’t know” If we as leaders do not know our organization vision statement, then why should our employees know, or even care what our direction is?

Our vision statement should be the blueprint of all we do in our daily workings to achieve success. At Christian Hospital EMS our vision statement covers three components:

1. Delivering outstanding patient care
2. Being leaders in our community
3. Being role models for our career field

These three bullets are our marching orders for all we do. We are always asking the questions to challenge our vision statement, how does process assist us to deliver outstanding care? or how does this program assist us with being leaders in our community?

Thanksgiving Day 2012 was a great day for our department’s vision statement. Several employees dedicated  their time at a local nursing home and took 15 residents home for the holiday. In the EMS career field we are usually the best part of our patients worst day. We deal with tons of emotions on a daily basis. Well, on this day it was no different there were tons of emotions. These were not the normal types of emotions that we usually experienced though. With such a selfless act and simple gesture by our employees we brought joy, we brought happiness, we brought smiles and we brought the hope by these residents for a normal holiday with family.

In a career field that is normally thankless,  the employees from Christian Hospital EMS were proud to be “leaders in the community”. The thanks they received, the smiles they shared and the hand of friendship that reached out to them should be just enough reminder and motivation to recharge their “why I do this job” battery. On this day of giving thanks,  I am grateful for a group of professionals that dedicate their lives to ensuring they make a difference everyday. When employees know the direction set by the vision, only then can we define what the “S“ in EMS truly stands for.

It all started with a vision statement.  If as a leader I cannot recite our departments vision statement, why should the employees know it and really care about it?  Well in this case I can and they do….

Home for the Holiday

As we get ready for EMS Today, it makes me wonder what kind of classes to take and which instructors to go see. Being an EMS educator is such a big responsibility that sometimes it makes me wonder if we do the right things by our students. You may be wondering what that statement means, but occasionally as students, we tend to believe whatever our instructors teach us and, at times, never question that teaching. This will all make sense in a second so keep reading as we will displace a couple of cardiac “truths” and make them myths.
In my career, I have had the opportunity to watch some very dynamic and energetic instructors. When you have been in the field for 25 plus years and can be motivated by instructors, it is a true testament to their professionalism. They teach their classes with such passion and it truly shows they want to ensure we learn what they have to teach us. They know the material, respect their position as instructors and they give us a good show.

On the other hand there are instructors that are not as prepared at all. Their knowledge of the material is sub par, they read from the slides and seem to care less about what they are teaching or if we are even learning. As students we deserve better, and as educators we have the responsibility to ensure everything we instruct is as accurate as possible. That is why it is so important that we research our topics and ensure we are giving out the best information available.
During our research we need to find something that is not in the prepared material to share as new; perhaps something you may not have known in the beginning. There is always new research or new equipment to make our jobs easier. How about some stats or some foundation and history of the topic we are teaching? It is your responsibility that the information we teach is real, actual, and up to date.

As students we need to question the material we are taught and keep that learning process going. Do your own research after learning something then use what you have learned to teach a peer that did not attend the class. Prove what you were just taught is correct because sometimes the material can and should be questioned. For example, if you are taught that the atria are on top of the ventricles, we believe what we are taught. How about what the 12 lead EKG shows us? If you ask paramedics what the 12 lead displays, you always hear the most common answer: “it displays 10-12 different views of the heart”. Well, the atria being on top of the ventricles and the 12 lead showing 10 different views of the heart is nothing is further from the truth. Here comes the truth of what we should have been taught in the first place.
If we think about the orientation of the heart in the chest, the typical picture of the heart we see leads us to believe that the atria are on top of the ventricles as seen below.

In the video below, you will see that the atria are actually behind the ventricles, not on top of them. This is a great video, only about 7 minutes long. The narrator’s description is like drinking a glass of warm milk before bedtime.

The Heart

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