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.

How involved in education is the medical director for your paramedic program? If you answered, "Not very much," you are not alone. Join us as we interview research authors Michael Kaduce and Jonathan Powell, who recently published a paper in Prehospital Emergency Care titled: Medical Directors, Facilities, and Finances: Resource Deficiencies in Accredited Paramedic Programs. Their objective was to evaluate US paramedic program resources and identify common deficiencies that may affect program completion. A lack of medical director engagement in educational activities, inadequate facility resources, and a lack of available financial resources affected the educational environment. They surveyed those who are directly affected: paramedic students.

Guests:

Michael Kaduce

Jonathan Powell

The EMS Educator will publish on the first Friday of every month! Be sure to turn on your notifications so you can listen as soon as the episode drops!

This podcast is sponsored by EMS Gives Life. Would you consider becoming a living organ donor? For more info visit www.emsgiveslife.org

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

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

How should we best acquire medical knowledge and skills so that we can easily retrieve and effectively use them in the field? Now that we are past the stressful March 31st recert deadline, hosts Maia Dorsett, Hilary Gates and Rob Lawrence delve into the issues surrounding EMS recertification and continuing education. Special guest Ethan Setnik, Chief Technology Officer at Prodigy EMS, offers unique insights into the design of learning from his perspective as a system engineer.

We know that the typical last-minute rush to recertify isn’t the most effective approach to learning, so listen and be inspired by evidence-based strategies for better knowledge retention. We discuss effortful retrieval, spaced repetition, and interleaving to enhance learning and improve clinical practice. Ethan shares insights about the ways technology and system design can support continuous competency and self-directed learning, moving beyond simply “checking the box” to fostering a meaningful educational journey for EMS clinicians.

Mentioned in the episode:

The graph of recert volume at Prodigy EMS: https://postimg.cc/6T7ShPYB

"Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning" https://a.co/d/0n5zMCr

Learning by Scientific Design: https://www.deansforimpact.org/tools-and-resources/learning-by-scientific-design

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

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 Twitter, FB, YouTube, TikTok & IG.

The pandemic ushered in a plethora of pivots in EMS education. How did educators Tom Bouthillet, Paul Pepe and Peter Antevy put together 30 hours of free online education? What does the future of EMS education hold? Is it mostly online? Should we go back to in-person courses? Join hosts Hilary Gates and Rob Lawrence as they discuss with Tom and Peter EMS education models, quality control, culture hurdles and British tacos.

This podcast is sponsored by EMS Gives Life. Would you consider becoming a living organ donor? Visit emsgiveslife.org for more info.

Find the Refresh content and more at www.prodigyems.com. Follow @ProdigyEMS on Twitter, FB, YouTube & IG.

Want more advice about how to effectively create EMS credentialing programs for your learners? In the latest episode of the EMS Educator Podcast, join hosts Rob Lawrence, Hilary Gates, and Maia Dorsett for a dynamic conversation with guests Dr. Jeremy Cushman and Shane O’Donnell. They dive into the intricacies of their successful educational program that trains EMS clinicians for specialty care transport (SCT). Jeremy and Shane discuss how to conduct needs assessments, perform gap analyses, and build learner-centered education models tailored to your system’s unique demands. From psychomotor skill validation to fostering clinical acumen, this episode offers actionable insights for EMS educators and leaders. Whether you’re refining an existing program or starting from scratch, this episode is packed with lessons and strategies to enhance EMS education and elevate patient care.

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

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.

This podcast is sponsored by EMS Gives Life. Would you consider becoming a living organ donor? For more info visit www.emsgiveslife.org

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

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

Prodigy EMS is proud to welcome our new medical director, Maia Dorsett, MD, PhD. Maia chats with Rob and Hilary about her educational philosophies, especially around cultivating lifelong learning, creating psychological safety in the classroom, just culture and systems thinking. Check out the PEC position paper Maia co-authored on going beyond skills training in EMS, and follow her on Twitter @maiadorsett.

Want to check out the references? Here is the link to The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge.

Listen to Ginger Locke's Medic Mindset podcast episode on lift assists here. Get your CE at www.prodigyems.com. Follow @ProdigyEMS on Twitter, FB, YouTube & IG.