Paramedic training is over, you’re in the front seat now. Whether day 1 or day 1,000 you can’t shake the fear you’re underprepared. You were taught to systematically decide if A... do B. But what if “A” wasn’t in the book? The truth is each emergency call is too unique to teach the right response to every situation. We need to go beyond algorithmic thinking and understand deeper principles, the WHY behind the algorithm. When every decision counts you want to rely on a framework that will guide…
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Burn patients can create a disproportionate amount of anxiety. The calls are uncommon, the injuries can be visually overwhelming, and it is easy to get distracted by the burn itself. Ross and Will talk with Mark Johnston, a longtime Advanced Burn Life Support instructor and burn program leader at Regions Hospital, about simplifying prehospital burn care. Mark explains how most burn patients should…
Readiness is about more than knowing the medicine. It’s about creating the conditions for patients, families, and clinicians to feel safer and more capable when the situation is unfamiliar, overwhelming, or high risk. First up, Boston MedFlight flight nurse Nicole King discusses neurodivergence, sensory overload, and how traditional EMS behaviors can unintentionally escalate distress. She explains…
What differentiates heat stroke from heat exhaustion? Once central nervous system dysfunction appears, every minute spent at an elevated core temperature increases the risk of permanent neurologic injury or death. Ross and Will talk with emergency physician and wilderness medicine specialist Dr. Greg Doctor about the full spectrum of heat-related illness – from heat cramps, rash, and edema to…
Most people picture a master clinician as the person in the room who knows every answer. In reality, mastery looks like the opposite, and admitting what you do not know. Ross talks with FlightBridgeED co-founder Eric Bauer about the “rage to mastery”, the advice that kept him in EMS after a series of difficult calls nearly drove him away, why expertise is perishable, and how ego creates resistance…
The calls that scare clinicians the most are often the ones they have the fewest opportunities to practice. So what happens during a rare, high consequence emergency? First, Jennifer Barnhart of Austin-Travis County EMS and Sergeant Luke Serrato of the Austin Police Department discuss the response to a mass casualty shooting on Austin’s Sixth Street. Then, Ross talks with Allen Wolfe about three…
The hardest part of evidence-based medicine is not finding a paper. It is deciding whether that paper should change what you do on your next shift. First, we talk with Dr. Jeff Jarvis about how to evaluate medical literature beyond the headline, abstract, conclusion, or p-value. You’ll hear about the PICO framework and why patient-oriented outcomes should matter more than the numbers that are…
Trust is the architecture behind every patient interaction you run. Dr. Cory Scheer, author of Closing the Trust Gap, has identified three evidence-based building blocks of trust: competency, problem-solving, and care for others. It turns out EMS providers already use all three the moment they step on scene. In this episode, we unpack the gap between senior leaders and frontline EMS workers, what…
The hardest part of a bad call is rarely the algorithm. In two different interviews I explore some human traps of running an EMS call. I talk with Danny and Rance from DNR Prehospital Education about a choking arrest, a difficult field intubation, and the trainer-trainee dynamic that made the call more complicated than the procedure itself. Then Bobby breaks down the CAFE pneumonic of heuristic…
A postpartum patient does not need to look dramatic to be in real danger. In this episode from FAST 26, Ross talks with Amy Loucks about pregnancy-related deaths, maternal care deserts, postpartum warning signs, hypertension, cardiomyopathy, infection, and the calls EMS can easily miss. Then Elizabeth Garchar walks through amniotic fluid embolism, now often framed as an anaphylactoid reaction of…
Pre-Oxygenation is not just putting oxygen on the patient and hoping the sat buys you enough time. In this episode, Ross talks with Scott Weingart after his FAST26 talk on preventing peri-intubation arrest. They get into why many peri-intubation arrests are predictable and preventable, why shunt physiology requires pressure and not just FiO2, and how EMS clinicians can build a field-ready setup…
A checklist should reduce cognitive load. So why does yours make things worse? Airline pilot and safety officer Glenn Fisher breaks down how aviation refined checklists over decades of crash data and human factors research — from verification-only flows to abnormal read-and-do procedures to defining the criteria for what should actually earn a spot on the card. Want more? Book a Free Coaching Call…
