Moving Towards Your Goals

Earlier this week I had opportunity to attend the graduation of one of my former staff, a paramedic who had just completed a year long upgrade to Advanced Care Paramedic.

Congratulations Bret Foisy! Well done.

Bret is a young man, a skilled paramedic, who has been willing to take a calculated risk in order to gain a long term goal. While many services have Advanced Care Paramedics and often pay for their staff, in some sort of partnership agreement, to undertake the training, Bret worked for a service that was limited to Primary Care Paramedics by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care. While the service has pressed forward with IVs, CPAP, 12 lead ECGs, King LT Advanced Airways and other enhanced skills, there has been a limitation by the MOHLTC to permit the service from moving forward to ACP.

Bret took it upon himself to invest more than $10,000 into the 1 year ACP course, using vacation, banked time and shift changes to attend school while continuing to work full time. All for a course that he did not know if he would be able to use at his service when he graduated. He still doesn't, but you can be sure that other services will be looking to pick up this young man who was willing to look forward and do what it takes to get there.

Emergency planning, much like Bret's calculated risk, is based on looking forward, seeing what the potentials are and planning for them. It takes time, effort and money but if the risks have been assessed, it all pays off in the future.

Congratulations to Bret, and well done to all of those organizations who have taken a serious effort in their emergency preparedness.