EMS Training

¶ … Size Exercises The current world of threats that surround the communities throughout the free world suggest that those associated with managing emergency responses to those threats are heavily burdened. The purpose of this essay is to describe needs for communities to develop a systemic method of training that includes full scale exercise evaluation. This essay will also address the notion that these types of full scale, or large scale events are essential in fulfilling the training requirements of EMS professionals.

To help support these arguments, a brief discussion concerning the community stakeholders in such exercises and their importance of their role within the training. A real life situation can never fully be replicated at the training level. There is always some sort of restriction or hold on the events that separates the event from feeling real or intense. EMS workers have in the course of their normal lives experienced many "real" and traumatic events on a micro level. The EMT thrives in this type of small scale event.

A problem occurs when these type of life saving events need to be accurately synchronized with larger and more wide scale emergency responses. It is essential that a plan of some sort is known at all levels of response. Verni (2012) suggested that research from the natural disaster responses require a plan at a collective level.

She wrote " the most important takeaway lesson from Hurricane Irene is that the best preparation for a successful emergency evacuation is to have a functional plan in place ahead of time, one that has been both tested and refined until emergency management experts are confident of its viability, " (p. 1820). The inclusion of all important players in this training effort reflects a holistic an balanced approach to problems solving that reflects wise and reasonable leadership.

Forethought to such macro-level efforts require a basic understanding about who and what is at stake in the case of large scale emergency or disaster. One of the more challenging tasks associated with leadership and emergency management is qualifying human lives and human resources. In a perfect world everyone and everything has equal value, but at the governmental level of planning, certain rank ordering must be done in order to preserve the functioning of government itself and protect the governed at all costs.

The importance of self-reliance from the smallest level of community becomes very evident when planning for large scale exercises. The collective leadership of such organizing bodies would serve the plan and effort well by delegating appropriately to the smallest level possible. Having a solid base of fundamentals based on simple and compassion responses serves these types of training exercises to the best advantage. Lichterman (2000) agreed with this basic understanding in his research which framed the argument in a very similar manner.

He wrote "residents of cities in regions threatened by a variety of natural and technological hazards are likely to feel more secure and less fearful.