Promoting EMS Ethics and Leadership

Part of every EMS practitioner’s job is interacting with the public and other healthcare professionals. Those interactions—and how you handle yourself within them—go a long way toward providing quality care for patients.

The National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT) has designed a new course aimed at providing EMS and mobile integrated healthcare (MIH) practitioners at all levels with the skills they need to effectively interact with patients and their families, medical personnel, coworkers, supervisors and the community. Principles of Ethics and Personal Leadership (PEPL) is a 16-hour course covering a variety of topics, including personal and professional core values, ethics, decision-making, duty to serve and conflict resolution.

Bob Ditch, EdD, CEM, NREMT-P, and an academic advisor/instructor for the Arizona Academy of Emergency Services in Mesa, AZ, and EMS management assistant adjunct professor at George Washington University School of Medicine, Washington, D.C., says he’s planning to start using the PEPL course this fall in paramedic and EMT classes. “We really expect it to enhance both our advanced life support and basic life support curriculums,” he explains, “increasing behavior and leadership dimensions of our student/graduates.”

Ditch firmly believes the PEPL course would benefit any EMS agency, “because it is essential that we institute a universal ethics and leadership dimension throughout EMS nationwide.”

Through facilitated course presentation, including dialogue and learning activities, and written and video case studies, PEPL students explore the importance of ethics and personal leadership, identify their leadership roles in civic life as individuals, family members, professionals and members of the community, and practice the skills important to the exercise of personal, ethical leadership.

This course is accredited by the Continuing Education Coordinating Board for Emergency Medical Services (CECBEMS) and recognized by the National Registry of EMTs (NREMT). And students who take this course may choose to receive a free one-year trial membership in NAEMT.

The PEPL course is being offered as an EMS World Expo preconference workshop on November 9–10 in Nashville, TN.

Visit www.naemt.org.