It was sometime in May 2010, that I received an email from Kris Kaull, a flight paramedic out of Montana and owner of an industry website called Paramedic.com. He asked if we could get together over breakfast to talk about a fledgling website called EMS1, to at which time, I thought, great! Free breakfast!
At that time, I had been working in the profession for over 25 years. Although I attended conferences, and for a couple years travelled extensively while representing a national EMS association, I had always felt that I didn’t exactly know what was happening in EMS systems across the country. Unlike other countries that had nationalized their services, our country kept system design and development at the state and local levels.
As a result, American EMS is delivered through a myriad of approaches, and with multiple purposes. I tried to imagine how each different configuration worked, what each did well and what areas each fared poorly. But there was no good way of knowing what was happening within the country.
So I agreed to write with great enthusiasm when Kris asked me to provide a bi-weekly commentary on EMS news, and that breakfast meeting turned into my first news analysis that printed on June 1, 2010. I could not have imagined that nearly 650 columns and articles later, I would still have the privilege of providing my thoughts and opinions about the profession that we love and cherish.
Dynamic, controversial EMS themes
EMS1 began as a news aggregator, pulling together daily stories that were being reported and bringing them into one site that could be easily and quickly absorbed by readers. It took only a few weeks of reading the stories being posted to realize that certain themes and issues were repeating themselves regularly. From the growth in community paramedicine, and the effects of the financial disaster, to the EMS providers who behaved poorly through social media, and the often murky world of EMS politics, EMS is a dynamic, controversial and exciting world in which to live and work.
In the past decade, EMS1 has matured into a full-fledged industry resource for professionals. Quality clinical and operational articles, publications directed toward the leaders of today and tomorrow, and amazing online continuing education have made the EMS1 website the most popular industry site today. Through it all, EMS1 continues to fulfill its mission of being an information site that is updated in real time, bringing the most current news and information to EMS professionals worldwide.
It’s been an honor to provide accolades when praise is due, and to point out shortcomings when they affect the ability to provide compassionate, quality care to the community. I’ve been called on the carpet a few times by EMS1 readers, and I am grateful for their responses. I’ve made a couple of mistakes along the way, suffering the occasional foot-in-mouth gaff.
But it’s been a pleasure to speak to you, dear EMS1 reader about this great world we work in. What the next decade will bring, is anyone’s guess (although we do try to do that annually like this list from 2011).
What do you think is ahead in the next 10 years?
