November 29, 2025 • 37 mins
Episode 312: In this episode, I welcome back Ginger Locke, a Paramedic and EMS Educator at Austin Community College for over two decades, and the creator of the Medic Mindset podcast. Ginger shares her journey through EMS education, how curiosity fuels her teaching style, and why mindset matters as much as medicine.
We dive into how education has evolved, what makes today’s EMS students unique, and her new role as Director of Innovation and User Experience at Prodigy EMS. Ginger also reflects on her most memorable Medic Mindset episodes, her favorite guests, and the lessons she’s learned after nine years of podcasting.
A thoughtful and inspiring conversation for anyone passionate about EMS, teaching, or the art of thinking clearly under pressure.
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/episode-312-ginger-locke--68800901
We dive into how education has evolved, what makes today’s EMS students unique, and her new role as Director of Innovation and User Experience at Prodigy EMS. Ginger also reflects on her most memorable Medic Mindset episodes, her favorite guests, and the lessons she’s learned after nine years of podcasting.
A thoughtful and inspiring conversation for anyone passionate about EMS, teaching, or the art of thinking clearly under pressure.
https://www.spreaker.com/episode/episode-312-ginger-locke--68800901
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Come in getting attention.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
All listeners on this frequency stand by for an important announcement.
Welcome to Medic to Medic podcast, the weekly podcast for
EMS providers, EMS leaders, EMS, medical directors and others involved
in for those who have an interest in emergency medical services.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Ladies and gentlemen, here's your host, Steve.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Cohen, coming from the Fern Down Medical Medic Podcast Studios.
It's another episode of Medical Medic Podcast. I'm your host,
Steve Cohen. You can reach me at Medic to Medic
Podcasts at gmail dot com. Download this episode at Apple, Speaker, Podbean, Spotify,
you name it, it's out there. My pleasure to welcome
(00:51):
back ginger Lock. Ginger is a longtime paramedic and EMAS
educator Austin Community College, where she's been shaping the next
generation of medics for the past twenty plus years. She's
also the voice in mind behind the Medic Mindset podcast.
And if you haven't listened to that podcast, you're missing
out on a great podcast because her guest and her
(01:13):
insight and her guest insights were just out of this world.
That show digs into the thinking, emotions, and challenges, and
emotions and challenges of those who work in pre hospital world. Ginger,
Now you're also working for Prodigy. We'll talk about that.
You're the director of Innovation and User Experience at Prodigy. EMS. Wow,
that probably fits in really well with you and your
(01:35):
creative mind as well. We'll see how you got into that.
So again, welcome back to Medical medic.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Well, welcome back to you too. Glad to see you
back the podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I appreciate that, Thank you very much. Well, you know,
if you remember way back when when we first talked,
I always like to talk to my guests and tell
us about your emas journey and how you got involved.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
So I grew up in Anthens, Georgia, and went to
the U University of Georgia and got a degree in sociology.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
And my mom was a.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
College professor there in educational psychology. And then my stepdad
designed and I installed commercial kitchens. So I had their
two brains growing up to listen to over the dinner table.
So I think they influenced me a lot, and we
can get to how that came to, you know, manifest
itself from my adulthood. And then I moved to Austin
(02:27):
with intentions of going to grad school at the University
of Texas. I first sociology, attended one semester and I
had made this mistake or blessing, not sure which to
take a year off between undergrad and grad school. And
during that year I worked for FedEx. I wasn't a
trust fund baby, so my gap year was not exploring Europe.
It was working in a truck serving people in the community.
(02:52):
And I think that might have affected my appreciation for
grad school when I went back and was sitting in
grad school and I missed that being on the clock, kind.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Of this logistics piece of my brain.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
And I'd always kind of been interested in the MS
and Austin Community College would send it out flyers at
the time, these big booklets of all the things that
they taught, and I thought, I'm going to take an
EMT class, so I did at night, and it turned
out that my professor there he also had a degree
in sociology, so I thought that's really interesting. He was
(03:30):
a working paramedic still is. I thought that's really interesting,
like paramedics. It might be a world that I could
fit into, And then went to paramedics school at the
same college where I teach at Austin Community College and
worked outside of Austin in a little town called Marble Falls.
It's where everyone goes to have their cardiac problems. It's
(03:52):
a retirement community, lots of geriatric calls and an hour
away from big resource hospitals medicine, kind of a low
resource environment. And worked out there for about five years
and was recruited to come back and teach my mentor.
And I came back to teach and thought I'll teach
for a while and then maybe maybe do nursing or
(04:16):
you know, continue patient care in some way, and ended
up loving it. So I've stayed there for two decades.
And I always say that I intend to just be
sitting at my desk one day at the college and
just turn to ash and that'll be the end. So
I really hope that I get to stay there for
the duration. It has been a rock for me through
(04:36):
various seasons of my life and a huge inspiration and
it's kept me fresh. And you know, it's difficult to
burn out an EMS when you're teaching people that are.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Really excited about getting into it.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
So I love the classroom environment with the students, and
we get to precept our students as well. In the
er so that satisfies that need of being around patients,
being around sick people. And that's how I got an EMS.
I think we blame FedEx for that.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
There you go. Wow, that's an interesting journey. Speaking of Athens,
I spent some time in Athens because my daughter went
to the University of Georgia. It was interesting, real quick
story about my daughter. She applied a bunch of schools.
She got waitlisted at Georgia and said, I'm not going
(05:26):
to go. I don't want nothing to do with They're
gonna waitlist me. I don't want anything to do with it.
And then it was in April of her senior year
they accepted her. She said, well, let's go down and visit. Okay,
So we go down and visit. As soon as she
walked through the arch of the gate and she said, yeah,
I'm coming here. No, no, no, I'm just kidding, but yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
It's a beautiful campus right exactly where she was standing,
probably one hundred foot Magnoia trees right there.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
In a great little town. It still has that college
feel town small.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Enough, and it does. And she said yeah, I mean
it was two seconds on the campus and said I
want to come here and it was the right choice
for her. It was the right choice for her. She
did very well. There, some great friends, and she's doing
wonderful in her career, so I can't argue with her
on that part. Then my son went to UNC because
(06:22):
we were living in North Carolina at a time, which
was really nice from the financial standpoint. But he got
a great education and he's thriving. So I can't complain
at all, as much as I like to complain about
her going to Athens, but that's okay.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
Well, good on her for getting into the University of Georgia.
It's a lot harder than when I applied. It's a
tough school to get into.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, oh yeah, she was excited and she did a
great four years, and I'm happy for her. Speaking about education,
it's changed a lot since she first started twenty years ago,
teaching it has yeah, yeah, from classroom lectures to paper tests.
Bubble it's bubble, the inns or whatever. Maybe now we're
(07:03):
doing high tech SIMS. What's the one thing you think
EMS is gained through all of this, your knowledge and
your experience in this modern EMS education world.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
I think our access, because we digitized so much, our
access to data and the expectation increased about you know,
item analysis and looking at our tests. That's just one example.
The expectation really rose once we were able to digitize everything,
and then now we're collecting all this data where you know, it's.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
The expectation was we would look at that data.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
And make sure we're doing quality improvement and checking our
evaluation tools. I think that was a big leap in
terms of the increase in technology.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
And then the other thing that.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
Happened since last we spoke was a global pandemic where
we all went back to our homes and had to
figure out how to educate through a computer, and so
that access parts of educators brains of kind of rethinking
everything and how do we teach this, Why do we
teach this? What's the best delivery model? And so it
was this. We immediately got our legs kicked out from
(08:11):
under us in our old ways and had to get
creative and so some of those things you know, still continue.
It was it was a wonderful, terrible experiment.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Absolutely on the other side of that, what is something
we might have lost along the way.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
M I think there's a tremendous value of hallway conversations
and education.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
These a lot of the education the cultural.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
I don't want to use the word indoctrination, but the
cultural kind of onboarding of.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
People knew to the profession.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Those hallway conversations are where you communicate and the learner
gains these what we call the affect of domain, right
all the values and principles of human care.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
It's a lot. It's tough to build the affect of
domain into curriculum.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
It can be done, but a lot of that happens
in the sidebar conversations. So for those that are only
doing a virtual education, they're losing that around the water
cooler kind of conversations unless it can be built, and
I think it can in a virtual environment.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
You just have to be more intentional.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Describe the modern day EMS student compared to maybe five
years ago, and I want to go back twenty years ago,
but I believe there's been a shift in how students
are compared to when I went to EMP school way
way back whenever, almost forty years ago. But I'm just
(09:50):
curious to get your point of view on what the
EMS modern student looks like today, and then if you
can compare it to maybe five years or wherever you
want to compare it, that'd be great.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Yeah, I think we can do truly.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
I think there are the before times, which is before
COVID in the aftertimes. I think that was a huge
line in the sand for educators. As you were talking,
three things kind of came to mind. The first is
I think there is some and there may be models
that disagree with me, but my view, at least in
the city of Austin, is that there is an economic
(10:24):
recession in terms of housing, and so our students are
driving further from more outlying areas. They have more very
baseline needs, access to food, access to housing, and so
that's market and our president.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
At the college has made this a huge.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Push and effort to support them with mostly financial kind
of resource needs. So that's that's one thing that comes
to mind. Another thing is they are not used to
reading books. That's not what they've done in their education.
They've searched things on Google or found things on the Internet,
(11:09):
which they will read, but they're not used.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
To someone handing them kind of a manual or textbook,
and that has pros and cons. I think that the
pro is that it is very current and.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
They're getting access to, you know, the latest paper, right,
they can find that latest research in ems. The challenge
is it makes it difficult for us to make sure
everybody's on the same page. Right, are we all reading
from the same sheet of music, so to speak. There
was a third thing that came to mind, How are
(11:43):
they different? Oh, I think generationally, and I think this
is a good thing.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
They challenged me more as a educator.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
When I first started teaching twenty years ago, I think
the average student was very used to an authoritarian kind
of classroom environment. Lots of you know, don't speak unless
you've spoken to type stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
A lot of guest ma'am's, a lot of.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Almost submissive kind of not not able to speak out,
just ask whatever question pops into their mind, which I
think is not good. And so this cohort that I'm
currently teaching challenges me every day, and that that challenge.
Anything I say, I know it will be challenged. And
so I've got to back it up with information that
we can both find.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Now on the Internet.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
There's no more expert and novice. The learner now has
access to the same information that I have.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
So they are they have access to information.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
And they also I think kind of culturally they are
used to challenging statements by experts, and that it's not
just you know, the be all end all if someone
at the front of the.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Room says something. And I've really loved that. It took
a little adjustment phase.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
But now I love it because so much comes out
of it educationally when they ask questions, and a lot
of modeling of humility of like, yeah, thank you for
pointing that out.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
I didn't know that. Let's look it up together.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yeah, that's my philosophy. In my current role, I do
a lot of education, both for EMTs and for the public,
and the public's always asking questions about everything and anything.
And I thought all day yesterday and we went really
off track and one of the questions that was asked,
(13:31):
it was like seven or eight or ten minutes before
we got back on track. But it was really good
discussion and people learn from it. And I always start
my classes that I want you to ask questions. I
want you to feel free to ask questions. Because if
you're a student and you have a question and you're
afraid to ask it, but I can tell you that
somewhere in that classroom somebody else is thinking the same thing.
(13:54):
Just ask it.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
No doubt.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Yeah, it's interesting the conversations that you have. I don't
mind being check challenged it sometimes. I think what I've
noticed in some of the students is that they come
off of thinking they're the experts and sometimes not that
they're well, I would say, sometimes it does rub me
the wrong way. I don't present that way, and I
(14:17):
don't show that on my face like I probably did
way back when. It's kind of difficult when they think
they know everything, or they come back for a research
and things have changed, and you explain why things have changed.
A lot of I mean, evidence based, especially in the MSS,
has become so prominent. We're not I'm just not making
(14:39):
up these things and what I'm saying to here making
up these why we're making these changes. Good example is
that you have somebody who took CPR way back when
and we're still putting their putting their hand underneath the
neck to open up the air way. You explain the
reason why you can't, well, not that's how I understand,
that's how you learned. We're going to work on it.
But that's that challenge. I mean, that's a very a
(15:00):
minor I guess I.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Think it's a good example, because what you're challenged to
do is you have to explain the why.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
This current Probably all generations, we've kind of gotten used
to expecting that we will understand the why and the
decision making process behind changes because.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Access to info.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
So regarding the student that thinks they're the expert, I
think over time, if you have enough conversations, you can
model for them that you as the educator. I'm not
interested in being right. I'm not interested in being the
right and being the authority. I'm interested in getting to
(15:39):
what is right, right.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Right, right right. Yeah, I mean, I'm like, the same
philosophy is that if I don't know it, I tell
them I'm not sure, but we'll get you the answer
either in the class or after a class or or
maybe and they appreciate that. I think the students do
appreciate that absolutely.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
And I think I think the worst thing you can
do is educators dig in your heels because and I've
learned that through experience. If I dug in my heels,
what would happen is, you know, certain percentage of the
time I was wrong, and so I was simultaneously being
wrong and then doubling down on my own and so
I've learned to one of my best meets in those conversations,
really be open and express curiosity and tell me more.
(16:20):
There's a saying in education that the person doing the
talking is actually doing the learning. So the more you
can get the learner talking and engaging the material, they'll
remember those conversations a month from now rather than just
being talked at.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Staying on the educational path. Here, before we head into
your podcast and other things that you're doing, you actually
took a role of director of Innovation and User Experience
at Prodigy EMS. We'll talk us about Prodigy ems is.
But that sounds like a perfect fit for you. That's
just my opinion and someone who blends education, design and empathy.
(17:01):
What does that role look like day to day for you?
And how'd you get there?
Speaker 3 (17:06):
I'm still glad you mentioned the empathy. Yeah, that's a
big part of it in terms of user experience. How
did I get there? I would say Hillary Gates. It
was kind of my gateway, as she has so many connections.
Hillary Gates has.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Been a guest on your show, and as have James
de Clemente a lot of the other Project team members.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Rob Lawrence, I.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Want to pause here and just for a second highlight
your podcast.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
How I describe it.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
To others is it is an anthology of people in EMS.
And so if I were to go to a lecture
that Rob Lawrence is doing at EMS World and I'm like,
you know, what's this guy's backstory?
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Who's this I really enjoyed him?
Speaker 4 (17:46):
I can go to the Medic to Medic podcast and
search him up, and there I get to get this
kind of behind the curtain and figure out what what.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Are Rob's values? Who's this person that taught me?
Speaker 4 (17:57):
So that's that's been the way I've used you cast
as a resource of just I had this like thirty
second interaction with someone, but I want to know more
about them.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
What do they value?
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Do we have kind of shared interests? I'll go I'll
go search up Medic to Medic podcasts.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
So back to your question, boy, First of all, you
embarrassed me. You embarrassed me, But thank you very much
for this kind of words. It's one thing I've I've
had to learn is to take the compliment. So thank
you very much. I appreciate that. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Well, you've put in You've put in the work something
like over three hundred Yeah episodes.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
Yeah, yeah, that's no easy task and it's a it's
a resource, So I hope it will continue to stay
there and be there for everyone in the profession. It's
it's kind of a legacy piece that you've just created,
and I hope it can last a long time. Thank
you mentioning Hillary Gates. Hillary Gates is like the Kevin
(18:55):
Bacon of VMS. She knows everyone and so we connected
when she was the EMS world and became friends, and
when she went over to Prodigy EMS, we just kept
talking and I kind of thought, well, if she picked
to work there, that said a lot to me, and
(19:16):
just that alone, because I think Hillary could kind of
work anywhere she wants in terms of her network and
her skill set, and so that was kind of how.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
They first came on my radar. I know what.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
Prodigy EMS is if you're not familiar, is it's an online.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Learning management system.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
It is a vehicle for continuing education for EMTs and
paramedics that's online. It can be used by just the
average user, just one person wants to log in and
research or kind of a bigger lift that it does
is it's a whole management system for departments that are
trying to manage their continuing education. So there's a catalog
(19:53):
of three hundred plus maybe four hundred by this point
classes that exist in the catalog. But then departments can
also upload their own classes right for their intro departmental education.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Talk about what you do there.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
I do a little bit of everything.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
So I am part time and it's kind of my
passion project. Nights and weekends work when I'm not in
the classroom at the community college, and I've.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Built some classes.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
I have spent time with people, a lot of training
officers who are using the platform to watch them work
and how do they Literally will sit on zoom and.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Watch them navigate the.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
Software to make sure it makes sense in terms of
the user interface. And then I and then I ligaison
with the developers, full time developers at Prodigies. It's not
just off the shelf kind of software. This is constantly
being updated and developed, and I talk with tech nerds
about can we make this button, can we change this
(20:59):
workflow for the user? And then just a lot of
little projects within it. Currently working on a preceptor education
class that would fill a need. It's a there's a
big need for educators that are on the truck. You know,
they've got their cadet, mentee, whatever we want to call them.
(21:20):
And you know, how do you teach someone how to
be a preceptor. So that's what we're currently tackling.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
What excites you about the EMS education and learning today?
Speaker 3 (21:31):
I man, so many things come to mind. One is
I I was.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Just talking to someone yesterday actually in a live Prodigy class,
and he was on an oil rig off the in
the Gulf of Mexico, and he was talking about what
he does as a paramedic quote unquote paramedic, and it
was a list of things that we would usually think
of as you know, our primary care provider of things
(21:58):
like sutures, antibiotics, and so I really love that versus
when I started the MS and to where we are
today that we've kind of.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Started entering other environments besides just.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
The nine one one ambulance pre hospital environment and we're
doing community care or these types of austere medicine, prolonged
field care medicine.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
So I think.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
It really shows the value of a paramedics education and
what all they've learned and what all they can continue
learning and branch into these specialties like mobile, integrated health
or critical care.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
That's the part that really I'm really digging, and I
hope it continues to grow, that we are able to.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Lobby or position ourselves as a profession where we can
fill these needs in the community that are beyond just
nine one one emergency medicine.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
One last question about education in some of the roles
SIMS have been part of EMS education for a long time. Yes,
it's gotten much much better. I mean, we go back
to when you first became a CPR instructor and you
had to recording Annie right, and if you couldn't get
the spikes in that box and they weren't square at
(23:16):
the bottom, and you weren't an instructor, all right, that
that was learning and that was a sim believe.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
It or not.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Where does AI now play a role into EMS learning.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
I'm glad you brought up AI. Have been contemplating it
a lot lately, so.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
AI has you know, it's a broad umbrella kind of
probably the listeners probably know a lot of this already,
but AI can include things like large language models like
chet GPT. Right, that's the one that most people are
familiar with, but it also does other things like computer
kind of vision that can identify images that might have
(23:59):
implications for ultrasound and imaging to assist us. For podcasters,
it's doing things like speech recognition right for captioning videos,
all the noise reduction tools for podcasts, voice isolation, things
like that. In the educational space, I think it is
(24:23):
assisting us in.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Generating. Where I've seen it use the most is generating.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Basically, we'll upload, you know, here's all the content, whether
that be content that's an.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Audio form, written form, video.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Form, and can you summarize it. I think that summary
is an excellent tool for a student who miss this
just happened on Wednesday at student miss class. I hit
my little AI recording and it's sent her both a
transcript the audio and a summary, right, And so then
what she could do as a learner is take that
(25:02):
summary or the full transcript, put it into a large
language model and say, hey, quiz me on this. And
they can then have a personal coach that has, through
you know, months and months of dialogue, has kind of
learned what their base knowledge is and what types of
questions they ask, and it learns you. It's customized to you,
and so you can do a lot of self guided.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Learning in that way. I think you started by.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Asking about sim and I don't know that I'm really
using it in any way for simulations. To me, simulations
are still pretty analog and by the bedside, and I
don't think I'm applying it anywhere there.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
One of the things I like about my podcast is
talking to other podcasters I just do then, yeah, because
that's how I learned. I learned about what they're doing
and borrow some of their ideas. And then one thing
I do like about when I talk to people. They
mentioned people and I say, well, probably should reach out
to them and get them on my gay as a
(26:00):
guest as well. And I have an acquaintance who actually
is on an oor rig in the golf and I
didn't even think about maybe bringing him on if he'll
come on to see if you will talk about it.
I didn't eve think about it until you brought it up.
So thank you very much for that. But let's talk
about medic mindset. You've been doing this in podcast years
(26:24):
way way. I mean, that's fantastic, what nine maybe going
on ten years now exactly.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
I never thought to describe it as podcast years though.
That's good, So really have been doing it, like thirty
or forty.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Yeah, that's right. I mean people that say, well, i'll
start a podcast and it's real easy to do. I'll
just record put it up there, Well, we can tell
them a little bit different behind what goes involved, especially
if you're a one person team, right, and you're working
off certain software as well, and trying to work on
your sound, all kinds of different things, right, But let's
(26:57):
talk about it. I mean, it's just it's legendary, it
really is, and I'm always amazed but inspired you to
start it.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
Well, at the time, this was twenty sixteen, there weren't
that many EMS podcasts. I've been happy to see so
many come on the scene. I think more is better
because the individual you can customize and find the podcast
that really matches, you know, the environment that you're working in,
or matches kind of your preference and style. But yeah,
(27:29):
when I first started, it was you and one other
podcast that I could really find, and so I called
you up and you gave me great advice.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
You fielded my call, and I really appreciate that.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
How I got started, I was trying to fill a
need again back to this affect of domain a fill
in need of as an educator. There's certain curriculum that
I'm following, and you know, things that the entry level
paramedic must know, and there's only so much time in
the day, and so I thought, where can I capture
(27:58):
them when they're not at school and that's in their
car or when they're doing the chores at home. And
I wanted to fill in some of those blanks for
transmitting the culture of VMS and bringing on guests that
really have kind of the same share values that I
do about how to take good care of people. And
(28:22):
that was the origin, was just filling in some blanks
in the curriculum.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
It's funny how things start to you start thinking about
it and wow, I can do this, and yeah, well
you've done wonderful. You've had some incredible guests and thoughtful topics.
If you had to pick your top three favorites or
most I don't know if you can do that or not,
what I mean you can, or meaningful, meaningful episodes or topics,
(28:51):
which ones would stand out to you?
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (28:54):
I definitely they're not my favorites. My favorite episode is
always the one I'm currently working on. You probably relate
to that. Ones that come to mind are Ashley Lee
Big who is a starflight nurse and she was in
(29:15):
the military and took care of a patient who she
stayed friends with. And the name of that episode is
Someone Someone, and the idea is that every patient is
somebody's somebody And I talked to both of them simultaneously
and her insight was beautiful, but the patient perspective was
(29:38):
kind of a unique thing. I haven't done that where
I've talked to a recipient of EMS care and what
do they remember about that interaction? It wasn't it was
a military medicine, but still kind of is out of
hospital medicine. So that one comes to mind, and then
another one that is to me just educational. Gold was
(30:00):
the beginning of a series that I call the Thinking Series,
and Brandon Beliefe came on just to talk about chess
pain and how does he as an emergency medicine physician
and EMS physician, how does he think about the decision
making process and what does he assess and the differential
diagnosis of the bread.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
And butter chest pain patient.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
I think there's a lot in that one. And I
don't send my students to medic mindset, but I wish
they would all listen to the Thinking Series because it's
a series of ems physicians, emergency medicine physicians talking about
it's putting the.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Curriculum on its head.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
Usually we talk about diseases and here the complaints.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
This talks about.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
It starts with the complaint first, which is how we
interact with patients. We start with a chief complaint and
then how do you think down from there? So those
are my those are the ones that come to mind.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Great. One thing I've noticed about your podcast is that
it's just not about medicine. It's about the mindset. Right.
We kind of talked a little bit about that and
the way we think, maybe under pressure. What have you
learned from your guests about how medics think and how
is that shaped the way you teach?
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Maybe this is something I think about all the time.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
What the podcast did for me and what teaching has
done for me, and watching enough simulation is to highlight how.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Biased or flawed our brains are. That it is not
a computer. The brain is not a computer.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
It is a very intricate and unique. Every single person's
brain is different, and so I think the faluability of
our what we think, you know, our overconfidence and our
thinking abilities or cognition has been the piece I've really
(31:53):
enjoyed the most because it's given me a lot of
empathy for old calls I ran that I know that
I messed up, and now I can look back and think,
that's why I made that decision. Here, here were all
the conditions that I was under when I was thinking
through this call. And it's a universal kind of human experience.
So it normalized some of that for me and allowed
(32:15):
me to give myself some grace. And then I see
it at the college with the new learner in the
same environment. I can almost tell what they're thinking and
what they are queuing into in the environment. And so
my favorite takeaway from doing the podcast and educating has
been to appreciate just how.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
I don't want to say flawed.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
But our brain has what's called a predisposition to respond,
meaning there's certain wiring in there that if you put
us in a certain environment, we will kind of.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Respond that way.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
And it's a lot of involuntary stuff going on in
there that you think you can control, and you'd like
to believe that you can control, but it's just not
like that.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
If you could give this is a twofold question. If
you could give advice to a brand new paramedic and
EMP student that's listening right now, what would it be.
And then for those who are thinking about starting a podcast,
what advice would you give them?
Speaker 4 (33:21):
They say that advice is usually the person expressing their
own regrets, and this is true in this case.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
So I will the advice to the learner or.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
The student empt paramedic student is And I wish I
had known this when I was a student. We think
of going to school as performance and that we need
to do well in evaluation. But really school is about growth, right,
It's about trying new things, being messy, getting feedback and
(33:51):
adjusting over a period of time. And so I think
a lot of learners this is advice I give to
students now when they start their internship. You know, they
spend hundreds of hours with this one preceptor that they
want to quote unquote impress, and I try to reframe
that and don't go in trying to impress. Go in
and try to give it your all and trust that
(34:14):
through the process you're going to grow, and try to
take ego out of it. I guess right, this need
to look sharp, just do the things and it will
it will happen. And then if I justi podcasters, oh man,
figure out.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
What you're hoping to get out of it and be
open to what you might get out of it.
Speaker 4 (34:35):
I think I started trying with the idea of like
as we discussed filling in some of these blanks, but
what I ended up getting out of it were all
these unintended kind of consequences where I started. When we
do editing right, we listen to our own speech, and
so I started learning how to decrease.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
Fillers in my language.
Speaker 4 (34:53):
Or for sure it hands down the thing that it
gave me was access to people like you and.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
Leaders in the field, so I could just learn and
talk to them. So it's an amazing endeavor.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
And you know, the other piece of advice is don't
be afraid to call up.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
The Peter and Tevies of the world. There.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
I think a lot of people say yes to podcasters
that are just getting started, So don't be shy to
call up the people you've always wished.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
To talk to.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
That is such great advice. It's just I look at
when people say no, it just means not yet, and
you just keep trying. I know, you probably don't remember this,
but you gave me a piece of advice. I think
after you started your podcast and we were chatting. It
was very briefly brief conversation. I really looked at my
numbers and my downloads, and you said, don't worry about them.
(35:49):
That's all you said to me. And ever since then,
I said, Okay, whatever it is, it is what it is.
I'm having fun doing it. So that was a piece
of advice that I took from you. You said, don't
worry about the numbers, don't even look with the numbers,
and I don't. I still, after all these years, I
still don't look at the numbers. Whatever happens happens. People
that listen to it listen to it. And I'm going
back to just saying if you don't ask people to
(36:11):
come on, you'll never know and just ask them.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
Well, sorry, I'm just gonna say, you're not looking at
the numbers. I also don't, and I did for the
first three years, and I realized, I think we probably
don't look for the same reasons because we're not doing
it for that reason.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
It's not about quantity, It's about quality. Right.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
If one person listens and is inspired to become a paramedic,
or inspired or reinvigorated. Right, they're burnout and they listen
to a guest and I'm like, you know what, I
did get into EMS because I was excited about this
and that still exists and I still love this job.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
That's enough, right, The quality.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
More over, the quantity sometimes all you need. Well, Ginger,
it has been such a pleasure catching back up with you.
I really appreciate you coming back on my podcast. You've
done so much with the podcast, so much with the
education now with Prodigy. I appreciate it. So thank you
very much for joining.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Thanks Steve, it was just a pleasure.
Come in getting attention.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
All listeners on this frequency stand by for an important announcement.
Welcome to Medic to Medic podcast, the weekly podcast for
EMS providers, EMS leaders, EMS, medical directors and others involved
in for those who have an interest in emergency medical services.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Ladies and gentlemen, here's your host, Steve.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Cohen, coming from the Fern Down Medical Medic Podcast Studios.
It's another episode of Medical Medic Podcast. I'm your host,
Steve Cohen. You can reach me at Medic to Medic
Podcasts at gmail dot com. Download this episode at Apple, Speaker, Podbean, Spotify,
you name it, it's out there. My pleasure to welcome
(00:51):
back ginger Lock. Ginger is a longtime paramedic and EMAS
educator Austin Community College, where she's been shaping the next
generation of medics for the past twenty plus years. She's
also the voice in mind behind the Medic Mindset podcast.
And if you haven't listened to that podcast, you're missing
out on a great podcast because her guest and her
(01:13):
insight and her guest insights were just out of this world.
That show digs into the thinking, emotions, and challenges, and
emotions and challenges of those who work in pre hospital world. Ginger,
Now you're also working for Prodigy. We'll talk about that.
You're the director of Innovation and User Experience at Prodigy. EMS. Wow,
that probably fits in really well with you and your
(01:35):
creative mind as well. We'll see how you got into that.
So again, welcome back to Medical medic.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Well, welcome back to you too. Glad to see you
back the podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
I appreciate that, Thank you very much. Well, you know,
if you remember way back when when we first talked,
I always like to talk to my guests and tell
us about your emas journey and how you got involved.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
So I grew up in Anthens, Georgia, and went to
the U University of Georgia and got a degree in sociology.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
And my mom was a.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
College professor there in educational psychology. And then my stepdad
designed and I installed commercial kitchens. So I had their
two brains growing up to listen to over the dinner table.
So I think they influenced me a lot, and we
can get to how that came to, you know, manifest
itself from my adulthood. And then I moved to Austin
(02:27):
with intentions of going to grad school at the University
of Texas. I first sociology, attended one semester and I
had made this mistake or blessing, not sure which to
take a year off between undergrad and grad school. And
during that year I worked for FedEx. I wasn't a
trust fund baby, so my gap year was not exploring Europe.
It was working in a truck serving people in the community.
(02:52):
And I think that might have affected my appreciation for
grad school when I went back and was sitting in
grad school and I missed that being on the clock, kind.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Of this logistics piece of my brain.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
And I'd always kind of been interested in the MS
and Austin Community College would send it out flyers at
the time, these big booklets of all the things that
they taught, and I thought, I'm going to take an
EMT class, so I did at night, and it turned
out that my professor there he also had a degree
in sociology, so I thought that's really interesting. He was
(03:30):
a working paramedic still is. I thought that's really interesting,
like paramedics. It might be a world that I could
fit into, And then went to paramedics school at the
same college where I teach at Austin Community College and
worked outside of Austin in a little town called Marble Falls.
It's where everyone goes to have their cardiac problems. It's
(03:52):
a retirement community, lots of geriatric calls and an hour
away from big resource hospitals medicine, kind of a low
resource environment. And worked out there for about five years
and was recruited to come back and teach my mentor.
And I came back to teach and thought I'll teach
for a while and then maybe maybe do nursing or
(04:16):
you know, continue patient care in some way, and ended
up loving it. So I've stayed there for two decades.
And I always say that I intend to just be
sitting at my desk one day at the college and
just turn to ash and that'll be the end. So
I really hope that I get to stay there for
the duration. It has been a rock for me through
(04:36):
various seasons of my life and a huge inspiration and
it's kept me fresh. And you know, it's difficult to
burn out an EMS when you're teaching people that are.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Really excited about getting into it.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
So I love the classroom environment with the students, and
we get to precept our students as well. In the
er so that satisfies that need of being around patients,
being around sick people. And that's how I got an EMS.
I think we blame FedEx for that.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
There you go. Wow, that's an interesting journey. Speaking of Athens,
I spent some time in Athens because my daughter went
to the University of Georgia. It was interesting, real quick
story about my daughter. She applied a bunch of schools.
She got waitlisted at Georgia and said, I'm not going
(05:26):
to go. I don't want nothing to do with They're
gonna waitlist me. I don't want anything to do with it.
And then it was in April of her senior year
they accepted her. She said, well, let's go down and visit. Okay,
So we go down and visit. As soon as she
walked through the arch of the gate and she said, yeah,
I'm coming here. No, no, no, I'm just kidding, but yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
It's a beautiful campus right exactly where she was standing,
probably one hundred foot Magnoia trees right there.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
In a great little town. It still has that college
feel town small.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Enough, and it does. And she said yeah, I mean
it was two seconds on the campus and said I
want to come here and it was the right choice
for her. It was the right choice for her. She
did very well. There, some great friends, and she's doing
wonderful in her career, so I can't argue with her
on that part. Then my son went to UNC because
(06:22):
we were living in North Carolina at a time, which
was really nice from the financial standpoint. But he got
a great education and he's thriving. So I can't complain
at all, as much as I like to complain about
her going to Athens, but that's okay.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
Well, good on her for getting into the University of Georgia.
It's a lot harder than when I applied. It's a
tough school to get into.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, oh yeah, she was excited and she did a
great four years, and I'm happy for her. Speaking about education,
it's changed a lot since she first started twenty years ago,
teaching it has yeah, yeah, from classroom lectures to paper tests.
Bubble it's bubble, the inns or whatever. Maybe now we're
(07:03):
doing high tech SIMS. What's the one thing you think
EMS is gained through all of this, your knowledge and
your experience in this modern EMS education world.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
I think our access, because we digitized so much, our
access to data and the expectation increased about you know,
item analysis and looking at our tests. That's just one example.
The expectation really rose once we were able to digitize everything,
and then now we're collecting all this data where you know, it's.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
The expectation was we would look at that data.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
And make sure we're doing quality improvement and checking our
evaluation tools. I think that was a big leap in
terms of the increase in technology.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
And then the other thing that.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
Happened since last we spoke was a global pandemic where
we all went back to our homes and had to
figure out how to educate through a computer, and so
that access parts of educators brains of kind of rethinking
everything and how do we teach this, Why do we
teach this? What's the best delivery model? And so it
was this. We immediately got our legs kicked out from
(08:11):
under us in our old ways and had to get
creative and so some of those things you know, still continue.
It was it was a wonderful, terrible experiment.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Absolutely on the other side of that, what is something
we might have lost along the way.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
M I think there's a tremendous value of hallway conversations
and education.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
These a lot of the education the cultural.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
I don't want to use the word indoctrination, but the
cultural kind of onboarding of.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
People knew to the profession.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Those hallway conversations are where you communicate and the learner
gains these what we call the affect of domain, right
all the values and principles of human care.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
It's a lot. It's tough to build the affect of
domain into curriculum.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
It can be done, but a lot of that happens
in the sidebar conversations. So for those that are only
doing a virtual education, they're losing that around the water
cooler kind of conversations unless it can be built, and
I think it can in a virtual environment.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
You just have to be more intentional.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Describe the modern day EMS student compared to maybe five
years ago, and I want to go back twenty years ago,
but I believe there's been a shift in how students
are compared to when I went to EMP school way
way back whenever, almost forty years ago. But I'm just
(09:50):
curious to get your point of view on what the
EMS modern student looks like today, and then if you
can compare it to maybe five years or wherever you
want to compare it, that'd be great.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Yeah, I think we can do truly.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
I think there are the before times, which is before
COVID in the aftertimes. I think that was a huge
line in the sand for educators. As you were talking,
three things kind of came to mind. The first is
I think there is some and there may be models
that disagree with me, but my view, at least in
the city of Austin, is that there is an economic
(10:24):
recession in terms of housing, and so our students are
driving further from more outlying areas. They have more very
baseline needs, access to food, access to housing, and so
that's market and our president.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
At the college has made this a huge.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Push and effort to support them with mostly financial kind
of resource needs. So that's that's one thing that comes
to mind. Another thing is they are not used to
reading books. That's not what they've done in their education.
They've searched things on Google or found things on the Internet,
(11:09):
which they will read, but they're not used.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
To someone handing them kind of a manual or textbook,
and that has pros and cons. I think that the
pro is that it is very current and.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
They're getting access to, you know, the latest paper, right,
they can find that latest research in ems. The challenge
is it makes it difficult for us to make sure
everybody's on the same page. Right, are we all reading
from the same sheet of music, so to speak. There
was a third thing that came to mind, How are
(11:43):
they different? Oh, I think generationally, and I think this
is a good thing.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
They challenged me more as a educator.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
When I first started teaching twenty years ago, I think
the average student was very used to an authoritarian kind
of classroom environment. Lots of you know, don't speak unless
you've spoken to type stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
A lot of guest ma'am's, a lot of.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Almost submissive kind of not not able to speak out,
just ask whatever question pops into their mind, which I
think is not good. And so this cohort that I'm
currently teaching challenges me every day, and that that challenge.
Anything I say, I know it will be challenged. And
so I've got to back it up with information that
we can both find.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Now on the Internet.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
There's no more expert and novice. The learner now has
access to the same information that I have.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
So they are they have access to information.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
And they also I think kind of culturally they are
used to challenging statements by experts, and that it's not
just you know, the be all end all if someone
at the front of the.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Room says something. And I've really loved that. It took
a little adjustment phase.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
But now I love it because so much comes out
of it educationally when they ask questions, and a lot
of modeling of humility of like, yeah, thank you for
pointing that out.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
I didn't know that. Let's look it up together.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yeah, that's my philosophy. In my current role, I do
a lot of education, both for EMTs and for the public,
and the public's always asking questions about everything and anything.
And I thought all day yesterday and we went really
off track and one of the questions that was asked,
(13:31):
it was like seven or eight or ten minutes before
we got back on track. But it was really good
discussion and people learn from it. And I always start
my classes that I want you to ask questions. I
want you to feel free to ask questions. Because if
you're a student and you have a question and you're
afraid to ask it, but I can tell you that
somewhere in that classroom somebody else is thinking the same thing.
(13:54):
Just ask it.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
No doubt.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Yeah, it's interesting the conversations that you have. I don't
mind being check challenged it sometimes. I think what I've
noticed in some of the students is that they come
off of thinking they're the experts and sometimes not that
they're well, I would say, sometimes it does rub me
the wrong way. I don't present that way, and I
(14:17):
don't show that on my face like I probably did
way back when. It's kind of difficult when they think
they know everything, or they come back for a research
and things have changed, and you explain why things have changed.
A lot of I mean, evidence based, especially in the MSS,
has become so prominent. We're not I'm just not making
(14:39):
up these things and what I'm saying to here making
up these why we're making these changes. Good example is
that you have somebody who took CPR way back when
and we're still putting their putting their hand underneath the
neck to open up the air way. You explain the
reason why you can't, well, not that's how I understand,
that's how you learned. We're going to work on it.
But that's that challenge. I mean, that's a very a
(15:00):
minor I guess I.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Think it's a good example, because what you're challenged to
do is you have to explain the why.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
This current Probably all generations, we've kind of gotten used
to expecting that we will understand the why and the
decision making process behind changes because.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Access to info.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
So regarding the student that thinks they're the expert, I
think over time, if you have enough conversations, you can
model for them that you as the educator. I'm not
interested in being right. I'm not interested in being the
right and being the authority. I'm interested in getting to
(15:39):
what is right, right.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Right, right right. Yeah, I mean, I'm like, the same
philosophy is that if I don't know it, I tell
them I'm not sure, but we'll get you the answer
either in the class or after a class or or
maybe and they appreciate that. I think the students do
appreciate that absolutely.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
And I think I think the worst thing you can
do is educators dig in your heels because and I've
learned that through experience. If I dug in my heels,
what would happen is, you know, certain percentage of the
time I was wrong, and so I was simultaneously being
wrong and then doubling down on my own and so
I've learned to one of my best meets in those conversations,
really be open and express curiosity and tell me more.
(16:20):
There's a saying in education that the person doing the
talking is actually doing the learning. So the more you
can get the learner talking and engaging the material, they'll
remember those conversations a month from now rather than just
being talked at.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Staying on the educational path. Here, before we head into
your podcast and other things that you're doing, you actually
took a role of director of Innovation and User Experience
at Prodigy EMS. We'll talk us about Prodigy ems is.
But that sounds like a perfect fit for you. That's
just my opinion and someone who blends education, design and empathy.
(17:01):
What does that role look like day to day for you?
And how'd you get there?
Speaker 3 (17:06):
I'm still glad you mentioned the empathy. Yeah, that's a
big part of it in terms of user experience. How
did I get there? I would say Hillary Gates. It
was kind of my gateway, as she has so many connections.
Hillary Gates has.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Been a guest on your show, and as have James
de Clemente a lot of the other Project team members.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Rob Lawrence, I.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Want to pause here and just for a second highlight
your podcast.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
How I describe it.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
To others is it is an anthology of people in EMS.
And so if I were to go to a lecture
that Rob Lawrence is doing at EMS World and I'm like,
you know, what's this guy's backstory?
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Who's this I really enjoyed him?
Speaker 4 (17:46):
I can go to the Medic to Medic podcast and
search him up, and there I get to get this
kind of behind the curtain and figure out what what.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Are Rob's values? Who's this person that taught me?
Speaker 4 (17:57):
So that's that's been the way I've used you cast
as a resource of just I had this like thirty
second interaction with someone, but I want to know more
about them.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
What do they value?
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Do we have kind of shared interests? I'll go I'll
go search up Medic to Medic podcasts.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
So back to your question, boy, First of all, you
embarrassed me. You embarrassed me, But thank you very much
for this kind of words. It's one thing I've I've
had to learn is to take the compliment. So thank
you very much. I appreciate that. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Well, you've put in You've put in the work something
like over three hundred Yeah episodes.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
Yeah, yeah, that's no easy task and it's a it's
a resource, So I hope it will continue to stay
there and be there for everyone in the profession. It's
it's kind of a legacy piece that you've just created,
and I hope it can last a long time. Thank
you mentioning Hillary Gates. Hillary Gates is like the Kevin
(18:55):
Bacon of VMS. She knows everyone and so we connected
when she was the EMS world and became friends, and
when she went over to Prodigy EMS, we just kept
talking and I kind of thought, well, if she picked
to work there, that said a lot to me, and
(19:16):
just that alone, because I think Hillary could kind of
work anywhere she wants in terms of her network and
her skill set, and so that was kind of how.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
They first came on my radar. I know what.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
Prodigy EMS is if you're not familiar, is it's an online.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Learning management system.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
It is a vehicle for continuing education for EMTs and
paramedics that's online. It can be used by just the
average user, just one person wants to log in and
research or kind of a bigger lift that it does
is it's a whole management system for departments that are
trying to manage their continuing education. So there's a catalog
(19:53):
of three hundred plus maybe four hundred by this point
classes that exist in the catalog. But then departments can
also upload their own classes right for their intro departmental education.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Talk about what you do there.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
I do a little bit of everything.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
So I am part time and it's kind of my
passion project. Nights and weekends work when I'm not in
the classroom at the community college, and I've.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Built some classes.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
I have spent time with people, a lot of training
officers who are using the platform to watch them work
and how do they Literally will sit on zoom and.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Watch them navigate the.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
Software to make sure it makes sense in terms of
the user interface. And then I and then I ligaison
with the developers, full time developers at Prodigies. It's not
just off the shelf kind of software. This is constantly
being updated and developed, and I talk with tech nerds
about can we make this button, can we change this
(20:59):
workflow for the user? And then just a lot of
little projects within it. Currently working on a preceptor education
class that would fill a need. It's a there's a
big need for educators that are on the truck. You know,
they've got their cadet, mentee, whatever we want to call them.
(21:20):
And you know, how do you teach someone how to
be a preceptor. So that's what we're currently tackling.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
What excites you about the EMS education and learning today?
Speaker 3 (21:31):
I man, so many things come to mind. One is
I I was.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Just talking to someone yesterday actually in a live Prodigy class,
and he was on an oil rig off the in
the Gulf of Mexico, and he was talking about what
he does as a paramedic quote unquote paramedic, and it
was a list of things that we would usually think
of as you know, our primary care provider of things
(21:58):
like sutures, antibiotics, and so I really love that versus
when I started the MS and to where we are
today that we've kind of.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Started entering other environments besides just.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
The nine one one ambulance pre hospital environment and we're
doing community care or these types of austere medicine, prolonged
field care medicine.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
So I think.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
It really shows the value of a paramedics education and
what all they've learned and what all they can continue
learning and branch into these specialties like mobile, integrated health
or critical care.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
That's the part that really I'm really digging, and I
hope it continues to grow, that we are able to.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Lobby or position ourselves as a profession where we can
fill these needs in the community that are beyond just
nine one one emergency medicine.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
One last question about education in some of the roles
SIMS have been part of EMS education for a long time. Yes,
it's gotten much much better. I mean, we go back
to when you first became a CPR instructor and you
had to recording Annie right, and if you couldn't get
the spikes in that box and they weren't square at
(23:16):
the bottom, and you weren't an instructor, all right, that
that was learning and that was a sim believe.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
It or not.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Where does AI now play a role into EMS learning.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
I'm glad you brought up AI. Have been contemplating it
a lot lately, so.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
AI has you know, it's a broad umbrella kind of
probably the listeners probably know a lot of this already,
but AI can include things like large language models like
chet GPT. Right, that's the one that most people are
familiar with, but it also does other things like computer
kind of vision that can identify images that might have
(23:59):
implications for ultrasound and imaging to assist us. For podcasters,
it's doing things like speech recognition right for captioning videos,
all the noise reduction tools for podcasts, voice isolation, things
like that. In the educational space, I think it is
(24:23):
assisting us in.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Generating. Where I've seen it use the most is generating.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Basically, we'll upload, you know, here's all the content, whether
that be content that's an.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Audio form, written form, video.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Form, and can you summarize it. I think that summary
is an excellent tool for a student who miss this
just happened on Wednesday at student miss class. I hit
my little AI recording and it's sent her both a
transcript the audio and a summary, right, And so then
what she could do as a learner is take that
(25:02):
summary or the full transcript, put it into a large
language model and say, hey, quiz me on this. And
they can then have a personal coach that has, through
you know, months and months of dialogue, has kind of
learned what their base knowledge is and what types of
questions they ask, and it learns you. It's customized to you,
and so you can do a lot of self guided.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Learning in that way. I think you started by.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Asking about sim and I don't know that I'm really
using it in any way for simulations. To me, simulations
are still pretty analog and by the bedside, and I
don't think I'm applying it anywhere there.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
One of the things I like about my podcast is
talking to other podcasters I just do then, yeah, because
that's how I learned. I learned about what they're doing
and borrow some of their ideas. And then one thing
I do like about when I talk to people. They
mentioned people and I say, well, probably should reach out
to them and get them on my gay as a
(26:00):
guest as well. And I have an acquaintance who actually
is on an oor rig in the golf and I
didn't even think about maybe bringing him on if he'll
come on to see if you will talk about it.
I didn't eve think about it until you brought it up.
So thank you very much for that. But let's talk
about medic mindset. You've been doing this in podcast years
(26:24):
way way. I mean, that's fantastic, what nine maybe going
on ten years now exactly.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
I never thought to describe it as podcast years though.
That's good, So really have been doing it, like thirty
or forty.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Yeah, that's right. I mean people that say, well, i'll
start a podcast and it's real easy to do. I'll
just record put it up there, Well, we can tell
them a little bit different behind what goes involved, especially
if you're a one person team, right, and you're working
off certain software as well, and trying to work on
your sound, all kinds of different things, right, But let's
(26:57):
talk about it. I mean, it's just it's legendary, it
really is, and I'm always amazed but inspired you to
start it.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
Well, at the time, this was twenty sixteen, there weren't
that many EMS podcasts. I've been happy to see so
many come on the scene. I think more is better
because the individual you can customize and find the podcast
that really matches, you know, the environment that you're working in,
or matches kind of your preference and style. But yeah,
(27:29):
when I first started, it was you and one other
podcast that I could really find, and so I called
you up and you gave me great advice.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
You fielded my call, and I really appreciate that.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
How I got started, I was trying to fill a
need again back to this affect of domain a fill
in need of as an educator. There's certain curriculum that
I'm following, and you know, things that the entry level
paramedic must know, and there's only so much time in
the day, and so I thought, where can I capture
(27:58):
them when they're not at school and that's in their
car or when they're doing the chores at home. And
I wanted to fill in some of those blanks for
transmitting the culture of VMS and bringing on guests that
really have kind of the same share values that I
do about how to take good care of people. And
(28:22):
that was the origin, was just filling in some blanks
in the curriculum.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
It's funny how things start to you start thinking about
it and wow, I can do this, and yeah, well
you've done wonderful. You've had some incredible guests and thoughtful topics.
If you had to pick your top three favorites or
most I don't know if you can do that or not,
what I mean you can, or meaningful, meaningful episodes or topics,
(28:51):
which ones would stand out to you?
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (28:54):
I definitely they're not my favorites. My favorite episode is
always the one I'm currently working on. You probably relate
to that. Ones that come to mind are Ashley Lee
Big who is a starflight nurse and she was in
(29:15):
the military and took care of a patient who she
stayed friends with. And the name of that episode is
Someone Someone, and the idea is that every patient is
somebody's somebody And I talked to both of them simultaneously
and her insight was beautiful, but the patient perspective was
(29:38):
kind of a unique thing. I haven't done that where
I've talked to a recipient of EMS care and what
do they remember about that interaction? It wasn't it was
a military medicine, but still kind of is out of
hospital medicine. So that one comes to mind, and then
another one that is to me just educational. Gold was
(30:00):
the beginning of a series that I call the Thinking Series,
and Brandon Beliefe came on just to talk about chess
pain and how does he as an emergency medicine physician
and EMS physician, how does he think about the decision
making process and what does he assess and the differential
diagnosis of the bread.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
And butter chest pain patient.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
I think there's a lot in that one. And I
don't send my students to medic mindset, but I wish
they would all listen to the Thinking Series because it's
a series of ems physicians, emergency medicine physicians talking about
it's putting the.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Curriculum on its head.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
Usually we talk about diseases and here the complaints.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
This talks about.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
It starts with the complaint first, which is how we
interact with patients. We start with a chief complaint and
then how do you think down from there? So those
are my those are the ones that come to mind.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Great. One thing I've noticed about your podcast is that
it's just not about medicine. It's about the mindset. Right.
We kind of talked a little bit about that and
the way we think, maybe under pressure. What have you
learned from your guests about how medics think and how
is that shaped the way you teach?
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Maybe this is something I think about all the time.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
What the podcast did for me and what teaching has
done for me, and watching enough simulation is to highlight how.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Biased or flawed our brains are. That it is not
a computer. The brain is not a computer.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
It is a very intricate and unique. Every single person's
brain is different, and so I think the faluability of
our what we think, you know, our overconfidence and our
thinking abilities or cognition has been the piece I've really
(31:53):
enjoyed the most because it's given me a lot of
empathy for old calls I ran that I know that
I messed up, and now I can look back and think,
that's why I made that decision. Here, here were all
the conditions that I was under when I was thinking
through this call. And it's a universal kind of human experience.
So it normalized some of that for me and allowed
(32:15):
me to give myself some grace. And then I see
it at the college with the new learner in the
same environment. I can almost tell what they're thinking and
what they are queuing into in the environment. And so
my favorite takeaway from doing the podcast and educating has
been to appreciate just how.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
I don't want to say flawed.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
But our brain has what's called a predisposition to respond,
meaning there's certain wiring in there that if you put
us in a certain environment, we will kind of.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Respond that way.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
And it's a lot of involuntary stuff going on in
there that you think you can control, and you'd like
to believe that you can control, but it's just not
like that.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
If you could give this is a twofold question. If
you could give advice to a brand new paramedic and
EMP student that's listening right now, what would it be.
And then for those who are thinking about starting a podcast,
what advice would you give them?
Speaker 4 (33:21):
They say that advice is usually the person expressing their
own regrets, and this is true in this case.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
So I will the advice to the learner or.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
The student empt paramedic student is And I wish I
had known this when I was a student. We think
of going to school as performance and that we need
to do well in evaluation. But really school is about growth, right,
It's about trying new things, being messy, getting feedback and
(33:51):
adjusting over a period of time. And so I think
a lot of learners this is advice I give to
students now when they start their internship. You know, they
spend hundreds of hours with this one preceptor that they
want to quote unquote impress, and I try to reframe
that and don't go in trying to impress. Go in
and try to give it your all and trust that
(34:14):
through the process you're going to grow, and try to
take ego out of it. I guess right, this need
to look sharp, just do the things and it will
it will happen. And then if I justi podcasters, oh man,
figure out.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
What you're hoping to get out of it and be
open to what you might get out of it.
Speaker 4 (34:35):
I think I started trying with the idea of like
as we discussed filling in some of these blanks, but
what I ended up getting out of it were all
these unintended kind of consequences where I started. When we
do editing right, we listen to our own speech, and
so I started learning how to decrease.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
Fillers in my language.
Speaker 4 (34:53):
Or for sure it hands down the thing that it
gave me was access to people like you and.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
Leaders in the field, so I could just learn and
talk to them. So it's an amazing endeavor.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
And you know, the other piece of advice is don't
be afraid to call up.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
The Peter and Tevies of the world. There.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
I think a lot of people say yes to podcasters
that are just getting started, So don't be shy to
call up the people you've always wished.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
To talk to.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
That is such great advice. It's just I look at
when people say no, it just means not yet, and
you just keep trying. I know, you probably don't remember this,
but you gave me a piece of advice. I think
after you started your podcast and we were chatting. It
was very briefly brief conversation. I really looked at my
numbers and my downloads, and you said, don't worry about them.
(35:49):
That's all you said to me. And ever since then,
I said, Okay, whatever it is, it is what it is.
I'm having fun doing it. So that was a piece
of advice that I took from you. You said, don't
worry about the numbers, don't even look with the numbers,
and I don't. I still, after all these years, I
still don't look at the numbers. Whatever happens happens. People
that listen to it listen to it. And I'm going
back to just saying if you don't ask people to
(36:11):
come on, you'll never know and just ask them.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
Well, sorry, I'm just gonna say, you're not looking at
the numbers. I also don't, and I did for the
first three years, and I realized, I think we probably
don't look for the same reasons because we're not doing
it for that reason.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
It's not about quantity, It's about quality. Right.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
If one person listens and is inspired to become a paramedic,
or inspired or reinvigorated. Right, they're burnout and they listen
to a guest and I'm like, you know what, I
did get into EMS because I was excited about this
and that still exists and I still love this job.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
That's enough, right, The quality.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
More over, the quantity sometimes all you need. Well, Ginger,
it has been such a pleasure catching back up with you.
I really appreciate you coming back on my podcast. You've
done so much with the podcast, so much with the
education now with Prodigy. I appreciate it. So thank you
very much for joining.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Thanks Steve, it was just a pleasure.
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