This elective offers students the opportunity to learn about and experience pre-hospital and disaster medicine through a series of structured didactic sessions and hands-on field experiences. This elective is made possible by several partnerships: WMed Department of Emergency Medicine Division of EMS, Kalamazoo County Medical Control Authority, Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety, Oshtemo Township Fire Department, Kalamazoo County 911 Dispatch, Life EMS, and PrideCare.

EMS is a relatively new specialty in the house of medicine, becoming an ABEM Boarded subspecialty in September 2010 with the first certification exam being administered in 2013. The Kalamazoo County EMS system is a high-performance single tier ALS system with countywide BLS first responders. Serving a population of a quarter million, the EMS system is made up of four ambulance services covering designated areas of the county and sixteen first responder agencies - fire departments and public safety.

The four-week curriculum is broken into 4 topic blocks, including history of ems, introduction to medical direction and system design, quality improvement and finance, and special ops. The NAEMSP textbook and online FEMA resources will be utilized. Students will ride along with our physician-staffed medical support unit twice a week, spend a day with a fire department/public safety agency, and observe emergency call taking and dispatching at a 911 and ems dispatch center. Additionally, students will participate in monthly local and regional meetings, weekly fellow didactics and emergency medicine grand rounds, monthly SIM lab, and monthly EMS case review. The course concludes with a written exam based on the 4 topic blocks and a written course evaluation. The course readings, exam, and evaluation will be available through an online learning platform, Moodle. Students may work ahead on assignments. Course faculty include WMed EMS Fellowship faculty/fellows and WMed EM senior residents.