ANOTHER EMS blog?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

I've been intimidated by the idea of blogging for a while; as you probably know, there are a LOT of medical, and EMS, related blogs out there.  People much smarter, more opiniated, and probably more passionate than me.  However, a few weeks ago one of the paramedic students in the program I help with told me during open lab "Know what I'm going to start calling you?  Socrates.".

His point was well-taken.

Since I started in EMS an even decade ago, my favorite question has always been "Why?".  It pissed off my partners, got ED docs and nurses to do an abrupt about-face when they saw me walking down the hallway, and sent me down a path of madness; lots of time spent in the library and money spent on medical textbooks.  I still do that, although I've gotten better at balancing medicine with my other interests.  And in getting more and more involved with EMS education over the past few years, it seems I've been directing the same question, albeit with a different purpose, at my students.  You see, I don't think it's enough to know "what" to do; you should also know "why".  It's the mark of a professional.  And the more in-depth you understand the "why", the better.

So here we are.

My plan (at least right now) is to post on topics in EMS and emergency medicine that make me ask "Why?".  And I want to hear back from you....in a professional, mutually respectful way of course :)  I want to dig deeper into what we do in EMS, where all these ideas about how to provide out-of-hospital care came from, see what evidence there is (or isn't) to support our practices, and maybe provide a springboard to start making some change, or at least better understand WHY we do WHAT we do.  Because I think everyone in healthcare, from the bottom up, can benefit from a politely asked

"Why?"

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