Quiet. Professional. Ambulance Drivers

August 13, 2017 Chris R. Blog post

It is common knowledge that EMTs and paramedics say they have a thick skin. They tell their trainees and students that they need to develop a thick skin to survive in EMS. But you know what, those same sage-like EMTs and paramedics passing down that free career advice are the first people to lose their shit when someone call’s them an “ambulance driver.” Whether it’s the general public, a reporter or other media outlet these providers take it personally. They take to social media, memes are posted and I can only speculate that they apply some type of salve is in an attempt to heal said supposed thickened skin. Why? What happened to being the quiet professionals we like to tell everybody that we are? Yes, we LOUDLY tell others that we are quiet professionals. We do, right? On that rare occasion that someone says, “Thank you” we say, “Just doing my job.” We tell each other that, “I didn’t get into this job to be in the newspaper or the 6 o’clock news” but when that low angle rescue we were on makes the back of Page 8, we’re the first to clip it for the “I Love Me” wall even if all you can make out is the right arm of your turnout coat in the crowd of other rescuers on the scene.

Are our collective egos that fragile that we need it known that we are EMTs or paramedics with “x” amount of hours of training and such-and-such degrees? I don’t have any scientific proof to back it up but if we are not resilient enough to bounce back from being called an “ambulance driver” maybe that’s why provider suicide and mental health is on the rise. If we can’t cope with the public’s misunderstanding of our job then how do we cope with all the nasty shit we see on people’s worst days? Quiet. Professional. The literal term means: Do your job. Do it consistently. Do it reliably. Do it quietly. The rest is all bullshit. It’s not about you. It’s about being part of something bigger than yourself. Helping others. Serving your community. Being there for your partner and your team. Driving the profession. Do you really think the 70-year-old filled to her clavicles with pulmonary edema gives half a shit if you’re a paramedic, crew chief, critical care paramedic, certified flight paramedic, field training officer or any other number of titles or letters bestowed upon your collar in shiny brass or colorful patches and rockers that adorn your shirt sleeves when you come through the door at 3 am; guess what, she doesn’t. Will you not give your maximum effort to save someone if you are called an “ambulance driver” by a bystander on the scene? Shake that shit off, forgive the person who said it, forgive yourself for being too wrapped up in titles that you lost focus on the sick person who needs your help and then get back in the saddle and do your job. Life-saving is a serious business! Have I corrected patients: Ab-so-lute-ly. Do I lose my mind when I get referred to as an ambulance driver: nope? There are bigger problems in EMS. If medics and EMTs spent half as much time seeking out education and training to make themselves better, smarter and stronger as a clinician as they do demanding that people know their job title and understand the intricacies of the job, well then EMS wouldn’t be the half the shit show it usually is.

Carry on. Remember: Consistently. Reliably. Quietly.

Responder Solutions Group Receives Recognized Educational Content Approval from the Committee for Tactical Emergency Casualty Care

July 8, 2017 Chris R. Blog post

Responder Solutions Group was recently approved as a Recognized Educational Content provider by the Committee for Tactical Emergency Casualty Care. This means that RSG pledges to abide by the Committee for Tactical Emergency Care Principles of Guidelines Instruction.

from the C-TECC Principles of Guidelines Instruction:

As an educational entity that is recognized to be in accordance with the C-TECC Principles of Guidelines Instruction by the Committee for Tactical Emergency Casualty Care, we agree to:

1. Provide instructors that are qualified to instruct the Guidelines to the appropriate scope of practice and approved medical protocols of the student.

2. Provide TECC instructors and consulting personnel that are accurate, current and up-to-date with the Guidelines.

3. Instruct the education of the Guidelines without altering the inherent procedure, intent or purpose.

4. Instruct the operational application of the Guidelines without altering the inherent procedure, intent or purpose.

5. Allow for student feedback and incorporate that back into future courses as appropriate

6. No misrepresentation of the intent or proper application of the Guidelines in any way.

7. No attribution of the Committee’s approval or endorsement in any way to any specific product or company.

The Committee for Tactical Emergency Casualty Care does not endorse any training organization or program, but will recognize those educational partners who agree to utilize the guidelines, as written, without change to the language, scope, or intent contained within

Responder Solutions Group looks forward to presenting this lifesaving information and accompanying skills in accordance with the Principles of Guidelines Instruction set by the

Committee for Tactical Emergency Casualty Care.

3 “Legit” Bleeding Control Courses for the General Public

July 4, 2017 Chris R. Blog post

Public Access Hemorrhage (bleeding) control is SLOWLY gaining ground. Stop the Bleed campaigns are popping up as “add-ons” in already established Hands-Only CPR events, yearly Run, Hide, Fight! training and as standalone just-in-time training. Is one course better than the others? Which one meets your needs or expectations? While each of these courses present basically the same concepts and principles which is: you can save a life if you learn a few simple skills. Another common mantra is: nobody should bleed to death.

Continue reading for an overview of 3 courses that are rapidly gaining popularity, decide which one is right for:

You
Your family
Your faith based organization
Your workplace
Your youth group

Click Here to contact Responder Solutions Group to schedule a course and let our experienced instructors get you Ready to Train and Trained to be Ready!

FEMA: Until Help Arrives

Life-threatening emergencies can happen fast. Emergency responders aren’t always nearby. You may be able to save a life by taking simple actions immediately. You Are the Help Until Help Arrives.

When someone experiences a life-threatening emergency, the first care they can get can be the difference between life and death. In fact, you never know when you might find yourself in a situation where someone, a stranger perhaps, needs immediate medical help for a life-threatening injury. You are the most important help available to someone with a serious, life-threatening injury.

GOAL: The overall goal of this course is to teach participants basic skills to keep people with Life threatening injuries alive until professional help arrives.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

At the end of this course, participants will be able to:

Use simple and effective skills to save lives.
Communicate with 9-1-1 operators effectively.
Act to protect the injured from further harm.
Position the injured.
Stop life-threatening bleeding.
Provide emotional support.

TARGET AUDIENCE AND SIZE:

Teens and Adults with limited or no first aid training; it is recommended that there be at least 1 instructor for every 15 students.

COURSE LENGTH:

Approximately 3 hours.

COURSE OUTLINE

The course includes six topics along with a Welcome and a Conclusion. Each topic uses a mix of lecture, group activity, multimedia presentations, demonstrations, and practical exercises.

Topic 1: You Make a Difference – Participants learn about the critical role they play in the emergency medical response system, discuss why people act, and learn about how their minds and bodies may respond under stress.

Topic 2: Call 9-1-1 – Participants learn how to effectively communicate with a 9-1-1 operator.

Topic 3: Stay Safe – Participants learn how to assess a life-threatening situation and how to move the injured away from further harm.

Topic 4: Stop the Bleeding – Participants learn how to apply pressure and use a tourniquet to stop bleeding.

Topic 5: Position the Injured – Participants learn proper positioning techniques for those who are conscious and unconscious.

Topic 6: Provide Comfort – Participants learn about providing physical and emotional comfort to the injured.

Before You Go: Prepare to Help – Participants learn about resources and additional training available to them.

Stop the Bleed:

bleedingcontrol.org / American College of Surgeons / NAEMT & Partners

No matter how rapid the arrival of professional emergency responders, bystanders will always be first on the scene. A person who is bleeding can die from blood loss within five minutes, therefore it is important to quickly stop the blood loss. Those nearest to someone with life threatening injuries are best positioned to provide first care.

Launched in October of 2015 by the White House, Stop the Bleed is a national awareness campaign and a call to action. Stop the Bleed is intended to cultivate grassroots efforts that encourage bystanders to become trained, equipped, and empowered to help in a bleeding emergency before professional help arrives. According to a recent National Academies of Science study, trauma is the leading cause of death for Americans under age 46.

Partners:

American College of Surgeons, the Committee on Trauma, and the Hartford Consensus
Combat Casualty Care Research Program
Department of Homeland Security
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Emergency Management Agency
The Hartford
Johnson & Johnson
Major Cities Chiefs Police Association
National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians
Tactical Combat Casualty Care
US. Department of Defense
US. Fire Administration

GOAL: Our shared goal is to provide you with a one-stop, online resource to credible information on bleeding control. We hope you will never need to use this information, but if you do, at least you will have the assurance that the information is credible and timely.

Today we live in a world where terrorism, the actions of unstable people, and the dangerous impulses of friends and relatives are very real and becoming increasingly more frequent.

Massive bleeding from any cause, but particularly from an active shooter or explosive event where a response is delayed can result in death. Similar to how the general public learns and performs CPR, the public must learn proper bleeding control techniques, including how to use their hands, dressings, and tourniquets. Victims can quickly die from uncontrolled bleeding, within five to 10 minutes.

However, anyone at the scene can act as immediate responder and save lives if they know what to do. BleedingControl.org supports President Barack Obama’s policy directive for national preparedness (Presidential Policy Directive 8), which targets preparedness as a shared responsibility of the government, the private and nonprofit sectors, and individual citizens.

bleedingcontrol.org is an initiative of the American College of Surgeons and the Hartford Consensus and contains diagrams, news, videos, and other resources contributed by a variety of other private and nonprofit partners to help prepare you in the event you are witness to one of these unspeakable events.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

At the end of this course, participants will be able to:

Understand the importance of ensuring your own safety
Communicate with 911 operators effectively
Locate a bleeding injury
Apply pressure to stop a bleeding injury
Properly apply an arterial tourniquet
Effectively Pack a wound with gauze or a clean cloth.
Use simple and effective skills to save lives.

TARGET AUDIENCE & SIZE:

Teens / Young adults / Adults with limited or no first aid training.
It is recommended that there be at least 1 instructor for every 9 students.

COURSE LENGTH:

5 – 3 hours

COURSE OUTLINE:

Introduction
Primary Principles of Trauma Care Response
The ABCs of Bleeding
Ensure Your Own Safety
A – Alert – call 9-1-1
B – Bleeding
C – Compress
Covering the wound with a clean cloth and applying pressure
Using a tourniquet,
Wound Packing (stuffing) the wound with gauze
Summary

First Care Provider

GOAL: to improve our communities’ resilience to disaster. While traditional response to natural disasters and active violence will always be reactive, we’ve created a system to empower people before, during and immediately after a traumatic event.

Our Mission:

To serve the public by raising awareness of the need for civilian response to disaster, and to create an integrated network of individuals and communities empowered to ensure not another civilian life is lost from a preventable cause of death as a result of trauma.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

RACE2Safety!

React! – to the threat! Run, Hide, Fight!
Activate! – Your emergency system
CARE™!
- Control Bleeding -direct pressure / TQ
- Airway – recovery position
- Respirations – cover open chest wounds
- Exposure – control heat loss
Evacuate! – Evacuate to rescue

TARGET AUDIENCE & SIZE:

Teens / Young adults / Adults with limited or no first aid training.
Not published on website. My personal recommendation is at least 1 instructor for every 9 students.

COURSE LENGTH:

Approximately 2.5 – 3 hrs?

COURSE OUTLINE:

**Unable to find a published outline at the time of this writing**

Become a Top Performer: Beating the Dunning-Kruger Effect

May 28, 2017 Chris R. Blog post

Do you know what you don’t know? Do you even care? Well, if you don’t care about improving your personal performance then you are doomed to be stuck in mediocrity and that’s not O.K. because it means you’re part of the problem.

David Dunning and Justin Kruger described a cognitive bias in which people who performed at the lowest level of a task overestimated their own ability at the task. In other words: self professed experts at something are often underperforming the skill in which they profess to be an “expert.” Why is this? Simply, they don’t know what they don’t know. They suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability as greater then it actually is. Illusory superiority is a product of the person’s inability to recognize their own ineptitude. Without self-awareness, low-ability people cannot objectively evaluate their actual competence or incompetence.^[1]

The opposite of this is also true. High performing individuals underestimate their own ability and don’t understand why others struggle with skills that they themselves find easy to perform. In other words: If a task is easy for them to perform it should be just as easy for someone else to successfully perform. Obviously, this is not always the case since people learn differently and reach competency at different times.

Self assessment is the key to beating the Dunning-Kruger effect. Being able to have that HONEST internal self talk with yourself about performance is essential to develop as a professional and perform to your fullest potential. This is obviously very important if you work in a high reliability organization like healthcare, the airline industry or any other job that requires you to perform at your peak. This also easily relatable to everyday life. If you don’t want to the best person, parent, husband, wife you can be then you probably don’t like or know how to self assess.

Self assessment is also know as reflection. If you take 5 minutes after a task to evaluate a few things, you are on the road to performance improvement and development of your self as a top performing individual. Some people keep a reflective journal, others record their self assessments via digital voice recorder or their smart phone. Athletes use video to assess performance. The video doesn’t lie no matter how much they rationalize. The next time you perform a task such as starting an IV, placing and endotracheal tube, splinting a refract or just driving to work try this simple reflective debrief:

What went well?
What didn’t go so well?
What needs improvement
4. What can I do in the future to prevent things that happend when I answered #2?

The person who is constantly willing to self assess in all aspects of their life is the person who will continue to develop as a person and achieve peak performance Whether they are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company responsible for a multi-million dollar budget or a teacher responsible for 25 3rd graders, self reflection and self assessment pays dividends. You just have to be honest with yourself even when you don’t like hearing what you’re telling yourself.