EMS In the Jesuit Tradition

By Kevin Jordan

When we hear the phrase “Care for the entire person” we might immediately begin to think about a detailed physical assessment, but this phrase means something much different for one University based EMS organization — Fordham University Emergency Medical Services, appropriately nicknamed FUEMS.

In light of the Jesuit tradition stressed at Fordham University, Fordham EMS embraces the doctrine of Cura Personalis, which as you may have guessed translates from Latin to “Care for the entire person.” Cura Personalis stresses attention towards the individual needs of others, respect for their condition and circumstances, and a sincere acknowledgement of their uniqueness — ideals that have helped build the Fordham University EMS system from the ground up.

Bill White, former FUEMS Director in the late 80s, and current President of the Intrepid Sea, Air, & Space Museum, retold the unique history of the organization in his keynote address during the 31st annual Fordham EMS dinner on April 18.

Originally serving the Fordham community as the Student Emergency Response Group (SERG), the university-sanctioned organization was nothing more than a “band-aid club,” stated Bill White in his address. Fordham EMS found its roots in a pseudo-first responder capacity. However after a series of catalyzing events SERG would undergo radical changes.

One evening SERG received a call for a resident Jesuit in experiencing chest pain. After going into heart failure, SERG members performed CPR on the Jesuit for over an hour. However, due to a lack of equipment and poor FDNY response times in the Bronx during the late 80s, he could not be resuscitated. This event was a wake-up call to the President of Fordham at the time, Father Joseph O’Hare, who began to pay more attention to the young organization.

However, it wasn’t until after another call for a second Jesuit and the selfless efforts of various SERG members, that Fordham University helped SERG to become a BLS provider by purchasing them their first ambulance. Eventually SERG became a New York State certified basic life support provider and was renamed Fordham University Emergency Medical Services in 1988.

Shortly thereafter, in one of Bill White’s later years at Fordham, a call came in for an intoxicated student lying in a bush. After asking the conscious and very much alert student what happened, Mr. White asked him to stand up, but the student said he couldn’t.

After performing a quick rapid assessment he realized that the patient was in critical condition. This particular student had fallen out of the seventh story window of a dorm. After loading the patient into the ambulance he went into cardiac arrest, but FUEMS resuscitated him. Then once again he went into cardiac arrest, was successfully resuscitated, and finally went into cardiac arrest for a third time, but was once again resuscitated by Bill White and his crew.

The student made it to St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx alive, and even went into cardiac arrest a fourth time. Luckily the student lived, and in fact made a full recovery and continued to participate in intercollegiate sports at Fordham.

The moral of this story and the history is FUEMS relates directly back to the Jesuit concept of Cura Personalis. The members of SERG who played an instrumental role in the transition to Fordham University EMS embodied this Jesuit doctrine and had a keen sense of duty to the community. Their work not only brought major support for the Fordham community at the time, but helped strengthen the Fordham community as a whole even still to this day as the organization plays an integral part in the community.

Today Fordham EMS is a completely student run organization with over 50 active members and in the past year has trained over 150 new attendants and over a dozen crew chiefs and drivers. Fordham EMS is completely ran and staffed by student volunteers, where its members understand the importance of Cura Personalis, and continue to strive to this day to seek out ways to better serve not only the Fordham community but the surrounding Bronx area as well.