Today is World Mental Health day and in light of certain recent events, we here at EMS Underground feel it necessary to talk about mental health in EMS. Charles will be openly and honestly talking about his experiences in EMS and how he encountered depression and had a breakdown. In order to help our community heal we need to start talking about what affects us, the warning signs, how to help, and for all of our sakes remove the stigmas.

Terence Ramotar from AMR joins Tom and Charles today to set the record straight about EMS in Dekalb County. There are many headlines and news reports that focus on negative reports, blow situations out of proportion, and/or just spread untruths. Today the guys will be asking Terence directly about the issues and complaints that have arisen, why the contract keeps getting a temporary extension, and what AMR hopes to do to make things better. All this and your direct questions on today's EMS Underground.

EMS Underground: Dealing with different personality types

Tom and Charles discuss the programs that take you from no certifications to paramedicine. We believe experience matters - but what do you think? Do these programs put out qualified Paramedics or do they set you up to fail/struggle?

Tom and Charles are talking about the fact that everything changes all of the time. The topics include procedures, education, and the world around us. We not only have to change how we do things or how we learn things. We also have to change how we think about things.

Today we are covering an assortment of information following our visit with Chad Black of GEMSA and his talk of Pensions, we want to talk more about the transparency project, and Charles went to the Region 3 meeting and has some great info to report.

We interviewed Chad Black of the Georgia EMS Association. He tells us of what he has been doing to bring more value to the association and how they want to help the industry of EMS. One of the major projects in the works is an EMS pension plan. Chad shares some details of the goals they have with that plan, how he hopes to bring it about, and then slightly addresses the transparency project.

Sometimes we do everything right on a call and a patient passes away despite our efforts. The family at least wants closure but usually wants answers. In today’s show we will discuss a specific call and then talk about the hypotheticals of complaints and the reality of what you the public need to know.

EMS Underground is filmed/recorded at 911 studios in Covington, GA.

This episode was originally recorded on 6-27=19 and can bee seen here.

Topic:

In the field of EMS we get citizen complaints that sometimes are valid and sometimes invalid. Tom Kamplain of Georgia Institute of EMS and Charles McFall of Giant Size Team Up sit together to discuss these complaints. They go over the different types of complaints from the perspective of the paramedic, the supervisor, the firefighters, and the citizens themselves. These guys also bring some suggestions on how to address them, how to correct behavior, and refuse to pull punches. 

This show records live on www.facebook.com/georgiainstituteofems each week.

Find more of Charles at GiantSizeTeamUp.com and CharlesMcfall.com