EMS Week Education Day: Special Operations Training With FDNY EMS

The Fire Department of New York's (FDNY) Search and Rescue Field Medicine Symposium, formerly known as the Medical Special Operations Conference (MSOC), is a must-attend event for EMTs, paramedics, EMS physicians, and anyone interested in remaining at the forefront of EMS education and innovation.

Held May 4-7, 2023 at FDNY and FDNY EMS facilities, the symposium provided a unique opportunity to gain a comprehensive understanding of one of the country's largest agencies, learn new skills, and experience an unforgettable weekend of training and camaraderie with EMS providers from across the United States and the world.

The 2023 conference, held at the FDNY Fire Academy and EMS Academy, featured informative speakers and engaging hands-on sessions covering various special operations in EMS. Pre-conference, there was an EMS-rescue skills competition between teams from across the United States (and one from Austria). Additional preconference sessions ranged from tactical training, to burn care, to K-9 medicine and hybrid vehicle auto extrication.

The FDNY facilities on Randall’s Island boasts an impressive array of training props and stations that exceeds the capabilities of many local departments’ automobile extrication or trench rescue setups. The training facility includes a New York City subway station that recreates train accidents and trapped patients, fires and HAZMAT scenarios. A ship provided a pitch-black environment for the skills competition and is a facsimile of what crews that cover ports would encounter.

A passenger jet sliced in half and “crashed” on an enormous rubble pile on the East River provides challenging scenarios with infinite subtle modifications to increase the challenge for rescuers. Beneath the passenger jet, deep in the rubble pile, cribbing positioned at random angles created a challenging cooperative task as crews of four assisted each other over, under and around the tight passageway to get to their patient. A chamber within the pile became a makeshift classroom where students weighed the pros and cons of the various lifting and moving tools available for patient extrication.

These hands-on skill lanes taught by FDNY rescue paramedics, FDNY rescue companies, and FDNY EMS physicians added a layer of experienced teachers to the training of doing “good medicine in bad places,” in the words of conference organizer Dr. Doug Isaacs from FDNY.

The conference was a resounding success and is funded by the FDNY Foundation and attendee registration. Look to the summer digital edition of EMS World (to be published in June 2023) for a full-length story, more photographs, and detailed coverage of the entire event!