Emergency Medical Services comprise of people specializing treatment for individuals who need immediate aid. Normally, professionals encompassed are Emergency Medical Technicians, Paramedics, Emergency Nurses, Emergency Physicians, and if needed, police officers and firefighters. Emergency Medical Technicians These people do not only specialize on one particular task; more often, they train for various types of jobs.
In some instances, they become “dispatchers” or persons tasked to answer calls and help send ambulances and rescue vehicles to the scene of emergency. Other jobs include driving an ambulance, assisting rescues, and performance of emergency medical care (Emergency Medical Service, 2008). Paramedics Unlike EMT’s, paramedic practitioners have experienced extensive training since they perform most tasks and medical procedures in the emergency scene.
For instance, they use the radio to communicate for instructions coming at the emergency room or base station (Emergency Medical Service, 2008). Emergency Nurses They are nurses specially trained for treating emergency patients and are often tasked to decide if a person needs to see the doctor immediately, as he/she asks questions, assesses the patient’s condition, and are the first persons that an emergency patient will see (Emergency Medical Service, 2008). Emergency Physicians
Similarly, these physicians are specially trained for emergencies; hence, “specialists. ” For instance, these physicians specialize in helping people that are injured or hurt in an accident or have a sudden onset of illness such as heart attacks or a high fever (Emergency Medical Service, 2008). Management and Leadership in EMS Context The word “leader” first appeared in the English language in the 1300s; it stems from the root “leden” meaning “to travel” or “show the way. ” The term “leadership”, however, followed only some five centuries later.
One can sift through many definitions of the term “leadership” and fail to find a single ‘common denominator’ that will unite all of them. This may be because there are so numerous, varying usages of the term in equally numerous and complicated situations. However, for purposes of this paper, the following definitions used in many leadership studies were adopted: Leadership was broadly defined by Yukl (1989) as “influencing task objectives and strategies, influencing commitment and compliance in task behavior to achieve these objectives, influencing the culture of an organization.
” In simpler terms, leaders influence the actions and behaviors of their followers to obtain a shared vision or aim. According to Deming (1992), leadership must come from top management and leaders must possess profound knowledge. By profound knowledge, Deming meant that one must have knowledge of systems, variations (statistical thinking), theory, and psychology. Leadership is quite different from management; leaders grow from mastering their own conflict which arises during their developing years using internal strength to survive.
On the other hand, managers tend to perceive issues as positive progressions of events which must be planned, organized, scheduled, and controlled. In order to create the proper thinking perspective, leaders must aggressively investigate and act on the current market to create opportunities. Effective leaders are those that are capable of assisting their organization/country manage change and steer it towards success. This difference in leadership and management is also apparent in the context of emergency medical services.