EMS Subspecialty

[usrmebe]

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Can anyone give me some more information concerning the duties and opportunities of an ER physician specialised in EMS? Do they just act as medical control on the other end of the phone for emts/paramedics who work in the field? Do they get to work in the field prehospital as well?


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[DeadCactus]

Depends on the job. Mostly it is administrative, political, and training work. Some systems have a robust program for physician field response.

 

[TheComebacKid]

It depends on the system you are part of. In some systems, physicians get physician response vehicles. At my residency, most of the EMS faculty have their own that they can respond to calls with. They have some advanced airway stuff in the back. If you are looking to roll in, lights and sirens, have everyone step aside so you can do a prehospital resuscitative thoracotomy, I would say that's probably not going to happen.

The biggest part of being an EMS physician is related to being a medical director that writes protocols for your medics. What meds can they give in the field? Prehospital intubation etc.

 

[RustedFox]

They like to play fire truck.

 

[medicsb]

I've taken a community job and I am not EMS-fellowship trained. But I've worked as an EMT and paramedic doing critical care IFT, prehospital EMS on ambulances and on chase-cars. Dedicated EMS time is being worked into my schedule with pay to compensate at least some of the work, which will involve training, field response, offline and online medical direction, administrative work, etc. I will be able to use an EMS officer's vehicle for field response and there is a bag for EMS physician use. As local EMS does not RSI, we do carry RSI drugs, airway equipment including VL, some basic meds, and some addition equipment that is only meant to be used in extreme circumstances (e.g: a gigli saw). Admittedly, I got lucky with this job as the chair is very into EMS and few graduating residents have extensive EMS experience. The opportunities I have are far better than what was available at nearby academic jobs, mostly because all the major EMS positions were already taken aside from some token scraps.