Expanding Your EMS Horizons

On a college squad, you've either worked as a quick response service, or perhaps as a transporting service. Maybe you also have worked with a local fire department or a commercial ambulance company back home or as an internship. These are all great ways to use your EMS training and learn and meet people.

But there are more places to turn that offer different types of EMS experiences and training, along with providing great networking opportunities. In this post, I'll focus on disaster medicine. Disasters call for large numbers of EMS resources, but also additional training and often using a different model of care.

There are many organizations that you can volunteer with (and/or work for) that provide disaster medical services. I won't try to list them all, but lets focus on the two that I work with (feel free to add more in the comments).

The Metropolitan Medical Response System (MMRS) has teams in most states which are funded by grants from Homeland Security (via FEMA). These teams are staffed by volunteers and are usually under the control of the state's emergency management office (or similar entity). They respond to mass casualty incidents mostly within their state. FEMA describes the goals as such (you can read a detailed document also):

The MMRS program supports the integration of emergency management, health, and medical systems into a coordinated response to mass casualty incidents caused by any hazard. Successful MMRS grantees reduce the consequences of a mass casualty incident during the initial period of a response by having augmented existing local operational response systems before the incident occurs. (FEMA HSGP)

I have found my MMRS team to be a dynamic group of people (EMTs, nurses, doctors, non-medical administrators, communications experts, etc) that has provided great networking. Furthermore, each MMRS team has trainings that you otherwise don't have access to (at least easily or for free). Plus, the best part is that you are contributing your assistance in a meaningful way when an emergency occurs.

The second organization is similar to MMRS, although with a different focus, and on a larger scale. The National Disaster Medical System has a variety of teams, such as the Disaster Medical Assistance Teams (DMAT). These teams are located nationwide and take turns being on call for a month per year to deploy to locations nationwide or internationally for two week deployments in support of medical operations. DMAT members are federal employees under the US Dept of Health and Human Services, so the approval and training takes a while and the teams require significant commitment. If you deploy, your regular job is protected and you are paid for deployment time. Most importantly, you are working with an extremely talented team of professionals responding to some of the worst natural disasters, etc.

The National Response Framework utilizes the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS), as part of the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Preparedness and Response, under Emergency Support Function #8 (ESF #8), Health and Medical Services, to support Federal agencies in the management and coordination of the Federal medical response to major emergencies and federally declared disasters including:
* Natural Disasters
* Major Transportation Accidents
* Technological Disasters
* Acts of Terrorism including Weapons of Mass Destruction Events
(NDMS)