Well, EMS Week is once again upon us, and along with the BBQ burgers served to EMS crews around the country (made from leftover hamburgers from Nurse’s Week and leftover chili from Hospital Week, and served only to the day crews), it’s time for EMS agency administrators to recognize the accomplishments of their crews.
Some of these awards are silly, and some are serious, but they’re all meant with great affection.
Happy EMS Week, everybody.
The Thom Dick Caregiver Award
Given to the member of your agency who – day in and day out – demonstrates that she views the people in the back of your ambulances as people first and patients second. She possesses the hands and brain of a good EMT, but what makes her excellent is her heart. She don’t just practice medical care, she practices people care.
Bonus points if she’s good at dispensing EMS wisdom and calls younger EMTs “lifesaver.”
The Leeroy Jenkins Award for Clinical Aggressiveness
Given to that EMT at your agency for whom “scene safety” is a distant memory from paramedic school. He runs Code 3 to lift assists, pops out of the truck like he’s strapped to an ejector seat, and is busy querying the bystanders and family members on scene before you even get your rig into park.
He knows no fear, often has an IV and an airway established before he finds out someone else is the patient, and frequently finds himself wondering, “Hey, where did everybody go? Why am I the only one here?”
The Kelly Grayson Airway Samurai Award
Given to that guy at your agency who can fall down a flight of stairs and accidentally intubate five people on the way down. He knows words like “Mallampati” and “Cormack-LeHane,” and can even use them in sentences. SALAD isn’t what he had for lunch, it’s some mystical airway voodoo ritual he’s performing with a video laryngoscope and a suction catheter.
He’s got a fiberoptic laryngoscope handle custom-molded to fit his hand in a holster on his belt, knows what a McCoy blade is, and once tubed a 500-pound snowman who coded in the bathroom, wedged between the toilet and the tub.
Nasally.
With one hand, while writing his ePCR narrative with the other.
The Black Cloud Award
Given to that EMT who runs three trauma resuscitations a shift, is first-in on every MCI, frequently runs out of spare epinephrine in the drug box before he can get back to the station to resupply, and holds the record for most patients needing thoracotomies on a single scene. Have you heard that war story about the busload of hemophiliac Jehovah’s Witnesses who crashed into a glass factory? Yeah, that was his call.
The Black Cloud Award is the only award without an official presentation ceremony. That’s all right, we’ll mail you your certificate later. Just get out of our ambulance station. Now. Go home.
The White Cloud Award
This award is typically given to the eager student for whom the only times you cranked the ambulance were for lunch, dinner and to make sure your truck battery still held a charge. She’s the kid sitting next to you when you occasionally call dispatch for a radio check because you secretly fear it’s not turned on.
This one, on the other hand, comes with an elaborate presentation ceremony. In fact, if you keep coming back, we’ll award it to you every week! We’ve got crews fighting to be the ones to present this award!
The Psych Whisperer Award
Surly and belligerent drunks give her hugs, and excited delirium patients fall into peaceful slumbers with a mere touch of her hand. She’s loved by all the personalities of her schizophrenic patients, and bipolar patients think she’s awesome in both their manic and depressive phases. She once talked a guy off a ledge using nothing more than a cute kitten video on Facebook and a promise of a Starbucks frappucino.
Remember that scene toward the end of “Bruce Almighty,” when people start spontaneously confessing their sins to Bruce? That’s the psych whisperer.
The Johnny Bench Award for Field Deliveries
For that EMT who so many stork pins, he arranges them in a migratory vee, and has more kids named after him than George Foreman.
I know paramedics like that. One of them once worked two shifts at a remote rural station, one year apart. Both times, he ran one call; a childbirth … from the same woman.
Another friend from Connecticut has delivered 60 babies. He’s caught so many kids, they bronzed his obstetrical kit, and the pregnant females of Groton, Conn., voted to rename the second stage of labor “The Doug Dole Minute.”
The Parasaurus Longevity Award
Given to that medic at your agency with the most years of service. Not only did he watch “Emergency!” when the episodes first aired, but he remembers MAST pants, Thomas Half Ring splints, Kansas boards, rotating tourniquets and paper run forms.
Your operations manager frequently slips up and calls him, “Sir,” remembering the days when he was a rookie EMT and the Parasaurus was his FTO.
The Good Timing Award
Given to that crew whose innate sense of timing works in their favor every time. They manage to be second-in on every resuscitation so they get to do all the procedures and none of the paperwork, and they always seem to get canceled from calls because another unit cleared up who was just a little closer.
The Ferdinand Magellan Long Distance Transfer Award
Given to that crew who volunteers for every long-distance transfer, and has mastered the art of making one call last for an entire shift.
The “You Don’t Wanna Go to the Hospital Just for One Itty Bitty Bullet Wound, Do You?” Award for Highest Number of Refusals
For that medic who once worked a cardiac arrest, got ROSC ... and then obtained a refusal, or for the crew who spends 20 minutes talking a patient out of a 5-minute transport, and who manages to make, “What hospital do you want to go to?” sound like, “Dude, man up! Your bros are watchin’! You gonna let a little thing like a sucking chest wound break up this partay?”
The Vampire Award
For that medic who can get an IV in a chronic IV heroin user with renal failure and scleroderma. At 80 miles an hour.
From the driver’s seat.
This award comes with a certificate suitable for framing, and a lapel pin shaped like a vampire bat.
The EMS Arts and Crafts Award
For the EMT who can splint an open, angulated femur fracture with a bird’s nest, three-inch tape, and a couple of Twizzlers. Examples of his old splints are stuck to the medical director’s fridge with little magnets.
The Cliff Claven Award for Useless EMS Trivia
Given to that medic who knows what obscure mineral mined in Lower Slobakistan that Bretylium was derived from, the name of the smallest bone in the human body, that the femur has the structural integrity of reinforced concrete, that dura mater is Latin for “tough mother,” and that an elk can’t pronounce the word “lasagna” because of the way its esophagus is shaped. You can always tell that guy by his distinctive call, “It’s a little known historical fact ... “
The Leif Erikson Intrepid Explorer Award
For that EMT at your agency who never gets lost. Blindfold him, spin him around three times, and he can still make it from your station to an unmarked address at night. Plunk him down anywhere in the city, and he can tell you within a tenth of a mile the location of the closest emergency department. He’s currently deep in negotiations with Garmin to license his brain for their next-generation AI navigation software.
The “Um, Where Are We?” Award
He’s the medic who works the call, loads his patient and partner into the rig, climbs into the driver’s seat ... and realizes he has no idea where he is. Because he spends most of his time in the airway seat facing backward, he never knows where he’s going, but he always knows where he’s been. He’s not totally useless, though, because if you forgot a piece of equipment on scene, he can find his way back there from any emergency department in the city.
The Yoda Award for Mentoring
Wise, he is. Dispenses valuable advice, he does. Seen it all and done it all, he has. Handle anything, he can. Respected by even the doctors, he is. Reading this now in his voice, aren’t you?
The Jiminy Cricket Moral Courage Award
She’s the conscience of your agency, the one unafraid to speak up and chide us when we being bitter or cynical. She’s the one who always appeals to the better angels of our nature, even after the fourteenth transport of the shift. Even the triage nurses like her.
The name is silly, the award is serious. Give this one to the EMT who reminds us why we’re here.
The Bryan Bledsoe EMS Contrarian Award
Given to the person at your agency willing to speak uncomfortable truths about EMS that we don’t really want to hear, but really need to hear. He’s got the moral courage to stand by an unpopular opinion, because it’s the right one.
