Red Lights, Hot Spots and Disaster

The Concept: I have many interests which intertwine around each other, yet are also very different. My work as a paramedic has taken me from 911 ambulance work, to the world of disaster medicine, and now EMS training and QI for both fire departments and communications centers. I'm a trauma and QI consultant for an EMS agency in California and training officer for both a federal disaster medical team and a local Medical Reserve Corp. I teach an EMT class for a local community college. I love the work, and it pays the mortgage, but I also have a strong love of writing and now, podcasting. My first feature article was for the Journal of Emergency Medical Services (JEMS) in 1991 which led to presenting a few pre-conference workshops for their conference series. I have written and edited EMS textbooks and just had a story published in an anthology of disaster stories called, "To the Rescue - Stories of Healthcare Workers at the Scene of Disaster". I created a blog called, "Sam Bradley's Writer's Blog" that I've linked to a podcast, but found trying to address the world of EMS, Fire and Disaster along with unrelated stories tended to be confusing and cumbersome. Hence, this new blog which will link to a podcast specifically addressing the EMS life.

Discovering the world of EMS Social Media: I received my first iPod as a Christmas gift in 2005 and uploaded the first podcasts from iTunes. Initially there wasn't a whole lot of EMS podcasts, but that has changed dramatically in the last few years. Social media, especially Twitter, has opened my eyes to a whole new world of EMS related media. I learned about a movie called, "Level Zero" which was created by a man named Thaddeus (Ted) Setla (chroniclesofems.com). Ted is an Alameda County paramedic. I expected to see a "You Tube" level production but found an amazing, well produced, professional level film about "real" EMS people, many of which I knew personally. I found Ted on Twitter and we began to chat. I found that he had created "Level Zero" for EMS week 2009. Not only was this not-for-profit, but any money donated went to the families of the Oakland police officers that had been recently slain. Needless to say, I was immediately impressed with his love for the business, his charity, and his interest in taking EMS to a new level.

Through my association with Ted, I met some other amazing EMS field people who had blogs and/or podcasts. Subsequently, Greg Friese from EPS411 and emseducast invited me to take part in two podcasts with his group. Ted, and now Greg, let me to other people like Chris Montera (Geekymedic) at chrismontera.com, Tim Noonan (The Rogue Medic) at paramedicine101.blogspot.com, Carissa O’Brien at baselinevitals.com, Buck Feris at gomerville.com Jamie Davis(The Podmedic) at MedicCast.com, Steve Whitehead at theEMTSpot.com, Christopher Kaiser from lifeunderthelights.com and Dr. Keith Wesley from Jems.com. This is just the short list.

These people (and others I will link to in this blog)started an effort called EMS 2.0, which is an attempt to improve EMS from the field up. Ted experimented with some new social media concepts at the "EMS Today" conference in 2009. He and his group interviewed people from the conference, produced video of panel discussions, and created streaming video of the event with chat room communication capability. I took part in this and was very impressed.

Then came, "Chronicles of EMS". Originally called, "The Project". Two EMS bloggers, Justin Schorr (thehappymedic.com) a paramedic with the San Francisco Fire Department, and Mark Glencorse (999medic.com) from England, worked with Ted on the idea of working within each other's EMS system while blogging and filming the event. The result is the movie, "Chronicles of EMS" which will premiere in San Francisco on February 12th. I had the good fortune of meeting both Mark and Justin along with Chris Kaiser and others at a Tweetup in San Francisco recently. I'm looking forward to seeing them again at the premiere along with more EMS "movers and shakers" than have ever been in one place. The invitation said,
"This will premiere the pilot episode of "Chronicles of EMS" to the world. Where social media and television meet in an unprecedented first of its kind audience participation WebTV original series set in San Francisco. We will bring EMS Professionals from around the world together to network and inspire the future of the industry".

The following day we'll be filming a new venture called, "A Seat at the Table" which will involve discussions of current and relevant topics which will be it's own series. I was honored to have been invited to take part in this.

There will be much more to tell you about, but I'll save it for another day. Am I excited about this? ... hell yes! I've always believed in "Don't complain about it unless you have a solution". These EMSers have found that solution through blogging, podcasts, and video. I really hope the EMS world is paying attention, because it's about to change for the better!

Lastly, what I want this blog to be is a place for EMS folks, firefighters, law enforcement personnel and disaster workers to share stories about their professional lives and the things they most care about. Please link this to your blogs and your social media sites, and add a story or start a discussion thread. Stories produced in written form can also be podcast on iTunes to reach a larger audience if you like. Let me know what you think. I'll look forward to hearing from you!