What is required from both instructors and students to teach and learn clinical judgment? Our EMS profession is a place where right answers are not always cut and dry and grace might be the most important skill in the room. In this episode, guest Jeff Anderson, Paramedic Program Director at Bossier Parish Community College joins hosts Maia Dorsett, Hilary Gates and Ginger Locke for an honest, humbling conversation about what it really takes to teach clinical judgment. They dig into the gap between what students hear in the classroom and what they absorb in the field, why preceptors and educators can be in tension and how educators can struggle with ego and reactivity. They share real stories from their programs, talk through how they handle their own emotional reactions, and offer practical advice for educators trying to make peace with a profession that doesn't fit neatly into a protocol. Whether you're a program director, a preceptor, or someone still figuring out how to teach the grey, this one's for you.

Rob Lawrence provides the "Rob Recap."

Mentioned in the episode:

Daniel Kahneman, "Thinking Fast and Slow": https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555

Pat Croskerry, Clinical Decision Making: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1303712

The EMS Educator is published on the first Friday of every month! Be sure to turn on your notifications so you can listen as soon as the episode drops, and like/follow us on your favorite platform.

Check out the Prodigy EMS Bounty Program! Earn $1000 for your best talks! https://www.prodigyems.com/bounty-program

Get your CE at www.prodigyems.com. Follow @ProdigyEMS on FB, YouTube, TikTok & IG.

What if the traits that make someone great at EMS are the same ones that make traditional classrooms feel challenging? In this episode, hosts Rob Lawrence, Hilary Gates, and Maia Dorsett sit down with Nicole Hansen, EdD, EMT-P, Long Island EMS Division Manager for NYU Langone to explore two of her recent publications. Nicole shares findings from her dissertation on mental preparedness in EMS, including why current curricula fall short and how the "wounded healer" theory might shape who enters EMS. The conversation then shifts to her latest research on ADHD prevalence among EMS clinicians. They discuss how neurodiverse learners are often misread as underperformers, the link between ADHD and PTSD risk, and — crucially — what EMS educators can do right now to redesign their classrooms to support every kind of brain.

Ginger Locke highlights the episode's key points with her "Mindset Minute."

Mentioned in the episode:

Self-Reported ADHD in a Convenience Sample of EMS Clinicians: https://internationaljournalofparamedicine.com/index.php/ijop/article/view/3601/3399

Perceptions of Mental Preparedness in EMS Students: https://scholarworks.ace.edu/items/88b8a3d3-f12e-466f-b048-d9d62bb7a5e2

How Learning Works: https://www.amazon.com/How-Learning-Works-Research-Based-Principles/dp/1119861691

Prehospital Care Research Forum (PCRF): https://www.cpc.mednet.ucla.edu/pcrf

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/

The EMS Educator is published on the first Friday of every month! Be sure to turn on your notifications so you can listen as soon as the episode drops, and like/follow us on your favorite platform.

Check out the Prodigy EMS Bounty Program! Earn $1000 for your best talks!

Get your CE at www.prodigyems.com. Follow @ProdigyEMS on FB, YouTube, TikTok & IG.

Discover how collaborative learning, well-designed simulation, and fostering a culture of psychological safety are transforming prehospital airway care. National EMS Quality Alliance’s (NEMSQA) Airway Collaborative organized EMS agencies from across the country to analyze their current practices and explore ways to improve the safety and effectiveness of airway management. Join hosts Maia Dorsett and Hilary Gates as we explore why education alone isn’t enough for sustained improvement, highlighting the crucial role of system design and a patient-centered approach. Guests from the collaborative include Shawn Brinkley, Matt Francis, Tom Grawey and Marlow Macht. They share candid insights from their agencies, discussing how data revealed surprising performance gaps and spurred a paradigm shift towards optimizing patient outcomes over simply “getting the tube.” Listen in for invaluable lessons on how to cultivate a system where the expectation is a patient managed carefully by EMS to be truly optimized for the best outcome possible.

Ginger Locke highlights the episode's key points with her "Mindset Minute."

Mentioned in the episode:

NEMSQA Airway Collaborative: https://www.nemsqa.org/airway-collaborative

IHI Breakthrough Series: https://www.ihi.org/library/white-papers/breakthrough-series-ihis-collaborative-model-achieving-breakthrough

SALAD: https://www.sscor.com/suction-assisted-laryngoscopy-and-airway-decontamination-salad

The EMS Educator is published on the first Friday of every month! Be sure to turn on your notifications so you can listen as soon as the episode drops, and like/follow us on your favorite platform. Check out the Prodigy EMS Bounty Program! Earn $1000 for your best talks! Get your CE at www.prodigyems.com. Follow @ProdigyEMS on FB, YouTube, TikTok & IG.