For the last two Tuesdays I have had an intern.
I can hear you now, "That silly Happy, he has a desk job, how can he have an intern?"
Well, a local High School has expanded and offered an EMS Intern position. One of the local Rescue Captains has assisted in designing the program which will give this student an inside look at not just field time, but supervisor time, administration time, radio time and even a few days with the regulators (Remind me to ask her to ask about proof spine boards are a good idea.)
I am proud to announce she was officially bored out of her skull in the CQI office. What we do can be distilled down to the high school level, but the finer points of QA (stop laughing already) can be lost.
"We apply the rules, regulations, policies and protocols to each chart and determine if variations warrant review, coaching, counseling or reprimand. And after completing those reviews we analyze the results to determine trends and act on them."
She was unimpressed (Seriously? Stop laughing.)
So we read a narrative I was reviewing. It went a little something like this:
"Police activated EMS for man defecating on sidewalk. Male present alert and oriented, steady gait near pile of human feces. Male has no chief complaint and has no signs of traumatic injury. Male states "Just cite me and go away" without slurred speech. Male does not give consent to treat or to assess vital signs, threatens to pick up and forcibly relocate feces, EMS agrees male may leave area under own power."
"Why did the cops call if he wasn't hurt?" She asked.
"We're working on that, but I expect your generation to get that sorted out for good."
She had a chance to meet the Chief of EMS and talk to him a bit about what it means to be a Paramedic these days and looking forward. He is of the same mindset as me, that we make bad days better and go home safe to our families who will never know the truth of what we've been through.
I told her that the gauge of a good EMS leader is someone who, when asked if they would go back to an ambulance answers "yes" without the slightest of hesitation. You can be away from the ambulance for only so long I have learned and the farther away, the more you miss it.
Next Tuesday is her last day in the Administration track and we'll stop by the fleet yard and let her observe a World Class System deploy to chaos.
I can hear you now, "That silly Happy, he has a desk job, how can he have an intern?"
Well, a local High School has expanded and offered an EMS Intern position. One of the local Rescue Captains has assisted in designing the program which will give this student an inside look at not just field time, but supervisor time, administration time, radio time and even a few days with the regulators (Remind me to ask her to ask about proof spine boards are a good idea.)
I am proud to announce she was officially bored out of her skull in the CQI office. What we do can be distilled down to the high school level, but the finer points of QA (stop laughing already) can be lost.
"We apply the rules, regulations, policies and protocols to each chart and determine if variations warrant review, coaching, counseling or reprimand. And after completing those reviews we analyze the results to determine trends and act on them."
She was unimpressed (Seriously? Stop laughing.)
So we read a narrative I was reviewing. It went a little something like this:
"Police activated EMS for man defecating on sidewalk. Male present alert and oriented, steady gait near pile of human feces. Male has no chief complaint and has no signs of traumatic injury. Male states "Just cite me and go away" without slurred speech. Male does not give consent to treat or to assess vital signs, threatens to pick up and forcibly relocate feces, EMS agrees male may leave area under own power."
"Why did the cops call if he wasn't hurt?" She asked.
"We're working on that, but I expect your generation to get that sorted out for good."
She had a chance to meet the Chief of EMS and talk to him a bit about what it means to be a Paramedic these days and looking forward. He is of the same mindset as me, that we make bad days better and go home safe to our families who will never know the truth of what we've been through.
I told her that the gauge of a good EMS leader is someone who, when asked if they would go back to an ambulance answers "yes" without the slightest of hesitation. You can be away from the ambulance for only so long I have learned and the farther away, the more you miss it.
Next Tuesday is her last day in the Administration track and we'll stop by the fleet yard and let her observe a World Class System deploy to chaos.
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