The EMS Roundtable

Living the Vision

EMS Roundtable — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 16:45:35 +0000

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:

Delivering outstanding patient care
Being leaders in our community
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

Don’t you believe it

EMS Roundtable — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 19:55:12 +0000

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.

Here we see the true orientation of the heart in the chest. If we think about when we perform chest compressions, we are actually pushing on the left ventricle. We “squash” the heart between the sternum and the spine to move the blood through the aortic valve. Again, consider how the heart sits in the chest as we now set up to do a 12 lead. We put our electrodes around the left ventricle. So, with this in mind when acquiring a 12 lead EKG, the V leads only give us a display on what the left ventricle is doing. The pre-cordial leads share a view of the electricity movement through the atria and ventricles. As a great radio personality once said, you now have the “rest of the story”As instructors we have to be responsible for what we are teaching our students, and as students we need to question and keep learning on our own. We are in the business of life and death. Do our patients deserve anything else?

It’s an action not a position.

EMS Roundtable — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:41:46 +0000

As I sit here and try to decide a topic for my first rant, my thoughts lead me toward the topic of Leadership. Having been trained as a leader since 1986, in retrospect what my realization has led me to is there was no way in 1986 that I ready to be a leader. Being trained in the military taking the first class of ,education for Air Force Leaders the NCO Preparatory Course. This was a 2 week course that did not teach me all I needed to know about being a leader. At that time I was confident that leading the Air Forces best resources, its people would be easy.

What I can tell you was if I worked for me back then, I would have kicked my own ass. My leadership style was one of ordering, demanding respect, yelling, writing up folks, not listening to ideas and forgetting where we came from. It took me a lot of years of gaining experience, lost credibility, and no one wanting to work for me. A Chief Master Sargent had to show me the light and the error of my ways.

If we fast forward to today, there seems to be such a lack of leadership training in the EMS career field. We have some great folks that want to leave the truck and help their peers in leading them. One of the biggest is we automatically think that because we are wearing a white shirt we are leaders and need to be respected as such. Recently promoting a supervisor from the field and her first day at work, I asked the question “how does it feel to be a leader” Her answer was typical and well thought out, her response ranged from fear, to excitement, to anxiety. What came next was my response and that really made her chin drop. I told her that she was not yet a leader, and further went on to say you are just a paramedic that is wearing a white shirt and gold badge. Now you have to go out and earn the respect of you peers, workforce and yourself. Since that conversation she has done just that and achieving outstanding results. The success of a leader has to happen everyday. We have to fight everyday to be an overnight success.

So, now for you out there Let me ask you a question, what is the definition of leadership? There are a lot of different ways to define leadership. To me leadership means influence, if we can influence someone everyday we are being successful leaders. Does not matter what position you hold in an organization, set your goals on influencing at least one person a day and your leadership integrity will grow by leaps and bounds. In short leadership is not a position its an action.

Share with the readers how you influenced someone in your day. We will outline our best practices for our career field to share.

Until next time

Hello world!

EMS Roundtable — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:33:16 +0000

I’m not sure if you know this but I’m gonna share a secret about EMS. EMS is a very egotistical business, I know you are shocked and find this statement unbelievable. When we get into EMS whether as a Basic or Paramedic folks seem to think you know everything there is to know about EMS. If you know everything there is to know about EMS please raise your hand.

Well we seem to fall into this egotism trap and when we hear something we do not know, or are unsure of we choose not to ask the question why. The reason is we do not want to look like we don’t know what we are talking about in front of our peers.

Well, we don’t know everything and it’s OK to ask why. In this blog we will share some of the answers we should all be asking. Enjoy the rants and let see if we can learn something together.