Medical Director Ride-Alongs

Chris07

Chris07

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Hello everyone!

How common is it for a service's medical director to ride along with the service's medics to emergency calls? I've heard of it being done before, but was wondering just how common a practice it is. Has your medical director ever been on scene with you? If so, do they let you do your thing or do they tend to take the lead?
 
Depends how proactive your medical director is. Is he actually involved in QA/QI of your patient care, does he drive the protocols, or is he just the guy who signs the papers so that you can get your sterile water and AED pads ordered.

If he cares enough to go out and see what his crews are doing on the street, that seems like a good thing and should be applauded. Of course, he's not really going to learn anything unless he lets the EMTs and Medics take the lead, and mostly just observes.
 
Never seen it personally but I have heard from coworkers that he does do it every now and again*. He admits he's out of his element and lets the medic do their thing and helps with whatever the medic delegates to him, within reason.

*read: rarely
 
I would fully welcome my medical director to ride along as an observer. Would be a great learning experience to get his review after the call.
 
I think it would be particularly interesting if your medical director was a medic or EMT before going to med school. In most cases I find doctors are WAY out of their element in the prehospital setting, but having a director with you who has experience in EMS must be awesome. Not to mention the look on the patient's face when he/she finds out that they are being treated (indirectly) by a doctor in their own living room.
 
I wouldn't even tell them it was a doctor. Around here I would expect they would want the doctor do everything. I don't even know the last time our medical director started an IV

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Our associate MPD was a medic before med school, has a radio and occasionally shows up on calls.
Pretty cool when he shows up and carries stuff back to the truck. ;)
 
It's not uncommon for our assistant med director to show up on calls or ride out. I know Williamson County here in Tx has a very interactive med director who rides out regularly.
 
Our old Medical Director used to ride on the Ambulance with a Different crew every Tuesday.

Our New Medical Director has his own assigned SUV and jumps calls.

They have always just showed up to observe, they don't try to take over a call or take skills from a Medic. They just wanna observe, all aspects of the care we provide.
 
Our medical director is a senior Emergency medicine consultant- he often shows up on trauma jobs

you can see him in action here

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There is quite a few medical directors in the SE PA and NJ area that will go out "on the street." New Jersey has at least 2 physician response vehicles (St. Josephs Regional Medical Center in Patterson and Robert Wood Johnson University Medical Center in New Brunswick). The doc who started the EMS fellowship at RWJ has gone on to Newark Beth Isreal, so that area will have a physician response vehicle. That same doc is an assistant medical director for a MICU in south jersey. I wouldn't be surprised if he puts a physician response truck up down that way at some point.

I think Lehigh Vallay Medical Center in Allentown PA has a MD response vehicle and I know docs from Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia will ride out in the surrounding counties (but not in Philly as far as I know).

A classmate of mine worked for Pittsburgh EMS and saw docs from UPitt relatively often.

As EMS is officially a subspecialty of EM, you'll likely see alot more physician involvement in the field as it is going to be required of EMS fellowships and all programs will have to have a response vehicle for the fellows.
 
Fish said:
Our old Medical Director used to ride on the Ambulance with a Different crew every Tuesday.

Our New Medical Director has his own assigned SUV and jumps calls.

They have always just showed up to observe, they don't try to take over a call or take skills from a Medic. They just wanna observe, all aspects of the care we provide.
Click to expand...

Also our Medical Director was a Medic Pre Med school, so he like EMS and every aspect of the call.
 
medicsb said:
There is quite a few medical directors in the SE PA and NJ area that will go out "on the street." New Jersey has at least 2 physician response vehicles (St. Josephs Regional Medical Center in Patterson and Robert Wood Johnson University Medical Center in New Brunswick). The doc who started the EMS fellowship at RWJ has gone on to Newark Beth Isreal, so that area will have a physician response vehicle. That same doc is an assistant medical director for a MICU in south jersey. I wouldn't be surprised if he puts a physician response truck up down that way at some point.

I think Lehigh Vallay Medical Center in Allentown PA has a MD response vehicle and I know docs from Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia will ride out in the surrounding counties (but not in Philly as far as I know).

A classmate of mine worked for Pittsburgh EMS and saw docs from UPitt relatively often.

As EMS is officially a subspecialty of EM, you'll likely see alot more physician involvement in the field as it is going to be required of EMS fellowships and all programs will have to have a response vehicle for the fellows.
Click to expand...

We've just struck a deal with two colleges locally that will allow all of their 5th year Medical students Ride out with us, and the other School their nursing students will Ride.
 
5th year medical students in America? Generally that means they're doing an internal fellowship (such as the OMM fellows at my school), or they have the pleasure of repeating a year for a variety of reasons.
 
I imagine he meant 4th year med students. It'd be great if med schools required EMS time (I think they should for multiple reasons; not just to learn about EMS), but usually it is just a 2 week elective, and usually only done by those interested in EM.
 
It's a 4th year elective at the med school here that a lot of students take advantage of.
 
One county our Med Control Doctor is very involved in EMS. He's a great guy responds to calls and helps out.

There is also another Doctor but it changes every few months for fellowship or whatever they call it


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JPINFV said:
5th year medical students in America? Generally that means they're doing an internal fellowship (such as the OMM fellows at my school), or they have the pleasure of repeating a year for a variety of reasons.
Click to expand...

I make mistake, 4th year.

the 4 and 5 keys are so close together
 
I also like the idea of requiring med or nursing students who are interested in EM to do a 2 week "EMS experience workshop" with an emergency ALS provider....then that way they may be a little more understanding when we roll in and not nit-pick about the most insignificant things.
 
Do we really want future emergency physicians to have their first professional exposure to EMS be from the likes of systems like Los Angeles County?
 
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