Robby May on LinkedIn: Howard County Department of Fire & Rescue Services Paramedic Class 10's… (2024)

Spending the day in our Education & Training film studio at partnering with the University of Maryland, Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute to film skill demonstration videos of all EMT skills to complement those that we already have of ALS skills. These videos will be utilized to help EMT students in Maryland learn and practice their skills when they are not in front of their instructor as well as help instructors brush up on skills they have not practiced in a while. In addition, these videos will ensure that all students are being taught the correct method to perform the skill across the State.

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How are you honoring Pride Month year-round in your EMS education?HAPPY PRIDE! YA’LL MEANS ALL!As I’ve said in previous posts, the most important module of our Paramedic Program at is our Special Patient Populations Module. I’d encourage you to look at my post on that, which I posted in a comment on this post below. At the heart of that module is exploring our diverse patient populations, being aware of their unique challenges, and understanding how we can best care for them. As a gay man, it’s crucial to me to ensure that the clinicians I facilitate learning with understand important terminology, the historical discrimination that has occurred in healthcare, and the healthcare challenges we face.I understand that not everyone is comfortable teaching this content, not because they don’t want to, but because they themselves don’t have the knowledge or are scared that they will offend someone. As a part of Pride Month, I wanted to share and offer the recording of a lecture that I designed and teach in our Paramedic Program at Howard County Department of Fire and Rescue Services. It was also used in the Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute ALS NCCR Refresher in the 2021-2022 cycle for ALS clinicians across the State. I have also made this available via the National Association of EMS Educators (NAEMSE) DEIB Committee. I am more than happy to share the latest version of this PPT, which you can access here: https://lnkd.in/evS2pFUGThe lecture begins by introducing the learner to LGBTQ+ terminology to give understanding and reduce the unintentional harm our words can have as clinicians. It addresses the bias and discrimination that individuals have historically faced from the healthcare community. The lecture then focuses on some of the specific healthcare needs we, as LGBTQ+ individuals, face and how we, as EMS clinicians, can best support and care for these patients.It absolutely amazing the number of positive comments that I have received from clinicians as I have taught this course across the State. People want to know this information, but they are scared to ask, partially because of the culture in fire/EMS and partially because they don’t want to offend someone. So many students said that they now felt that they could better connect with their LGTBQ+ friends and family as a result.As a little gay boy that grew up scared to death in the heart of Appalachia, that now is flourishing and found love and acceptance from his family, friends, colleagues, and my community, especially with my fellow singers in the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, I can’t tell you how important it is for you to help us be seen, heard, and accepted.If there is any way that I can help you or your education program, please don’t hesitate to reach out!

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Friends, one of my greatest joys is singing with the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington, DC! Please get your tickets to see our show Portraits! The Gay Men's Chorus of Washington, DC presents the world premiere of PORTRAITS, a nine-movement commission that represents the vibrant spectrum of sexual, gender, racial, ethnic, and cultural identities through visual art, music, and dance. Each movement will feature one of nine artworks and come to life through music and motion. Each piece will highlight an aspect of the human experience, with lyrics and dance supporting the artist's original intent. Nine artists. Nine composers. Nine choreographers. One GMCW.It’s AMAZING because we are performing at the Kennedy Center! We’re only doing ONE performance, which will be on Sunday, June 16, at 5 pm! Considering that we sold out for all four of our Holiday Shows and the fact that this is such a big deal being at the Kennedy Center, we expect these to sell out quickly (especially if you don’t want nosebleed seats)!We've been practicing the music for months and it is STUNNING! It is some of the most challenging, beautiful music that I have ever sang. It is an absolute joy to sing it with so many other amazing individuals. You can buy tickets directly from the Kennedy Center (and you will also choose your seats) by going to this link: https://lnkd.in/eSGrGgym

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THIS! Absolutely this!

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Thank you to the for the Meritorius Service (for the work I've done with our Parameduc Program) and Quality of Care (for my work helping to start our whole blood program) awards tonight. While certainly not deserved or needed, the recognition was too kind. It is a great joy and honor to work with the best emergency services department in the state and arguably one of the best in the country. I have the privilege of working with passionate, intelligent, and driven clinicians every day. I cannot imagine a better job. I was especially proud to see three of my most recent paramedic graduates receive awards tonight for saving a patient's life. It makes me very proud as your former instructor!

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During the Capstone Field Internship (final phase) of our Paramedic Program at , we bring our students back in small groups, one day a week, for 4 hours to review and prepare for the NREMT Paramedic exam. Our current class, Paramedic Class 10, will take the new NREMT assessment on July 1. We specifically bring them back in small groups of no more than three so that they can get more individualized attention and tutoring from me (the Lead Instructor). Each weekly session has a topic focus (i.e., cardiology), and we spend time playing a variety of review games (Jeopardy, Kahoot, Plinko, Battleship) around that content. The instructor then teaches mini-lessons based on the areas where students struggle during the review games. Additionally, we pair content from Medic Tests that students are required to do. At the end of their Capstone Field Internship, they return to the Academy for three weeksfor an intensive 8-hour a-day (40-hour week) NREMT prep. Each of those days again has a content focus. The instructor starts with a mini-review of the major content, and then students complete various activities that we have created to help them review and prepare. The end is with taking an NREMT practice adaptive exam on EMS Testing or Medic Tests daily. This model has led us to a 100% first-pass success rate on the NREMT test, and we are planning to continue that with PC10 on July 1!

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One of the things that I REALLY enjoy doing is creating meaningful Professional Development (PDI) for instructors and facilitating it. In Maryland, all certified emergency services educators are required to complete 12 hours of PDI prior to recertification. Yesterday, I had the privilege to facilitate a 6-hour PDI, which I created called "Help! My student isn’t getting it, and I’m not a special educator! Demystifying learning disabilities and strategies to help all your students succeed" at the University of Maryland Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute for 70 instructors from across the state. The first part of the PDI looks at the brain science of adult learning, explores the most common learning disabilities, the testing process for disabilities, and the applicable laws and our role as educators with them. The second part looks at strategies that we can use that will benefit ALL of our students, whether or not they have a learning disability. A large part of this looks at how we can use artificial intelligence like ChatGPT to be a personal tutor for students and enhance students learning.If interested, you can check out the presentation at https://lnkd.in/e4jVAcCm

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I'm looking for folks in the Baltimore/DC area (or willing to be in the area for the day) who are interested in talking to some stellar high school sophom*ores about their careers! I volunteer with Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (HOBY) Maryland. Every high school in the state can send a sophom*ore who’s seen as a leader in their school/community. All those sophom*ores come together at Towson University for a weekend of leadership training focusing on empowering and giving them the tools to make change in their communities. I participated in this program in high school, which changed my life, so I have continued volunteering with the organization. I'm guessing that there are other members of the chorus who are also HOBY alum, as it's an international organization. I now serve as our Corporate Board Vice President and oversee the Professional Development portion of our student programming. On June 7, 2024, from 2 to 5 p.m., students will participate in an afternoon of professional development at Towson University. They will be able to learn from professionals from various careers via panels, workshops, and a networking session. We are looking for volunteers interested in being part of our Networking Event. Think career fair, but instead, students have an opportunity to come up to talk to you about your job and how you got there, learn helpful tips from you, and network. We do suggest having business cards, hand-outs, and/or a QR code/website link to direct students to should they be interested in your company or profession. Students will be given a list ahead of time with all persons in attendance and their careers to maximize their time during the networking session. Here’s a little more about HOBY: Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (HOBY) Maryland will hold our annual leadership seminar on June 6-9, 2024, at Towson University. This year is slated to be our largest seminar in over 20 years, with over 250 of the best and brightest high school sophom*ores from around the state attending. With over 50 years of service, Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (HOBY) empowers young people to make a difference and become positive catalysts for change—in the home, in the school, in the workplace, and in the community. Founded by veteran actor and humanitarian Hugh O’Brian, HOBY is the nation’s foremost youth leadership development organization with over 365,000 alumni. Our mission is to inspire and develop our global community of youth and volunteers to a life dedicated to leadership, service, and innovation.Let me know if this is something that you would be interested in!

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No more NREMT Paramedic Psychom*otor Exam…….not so fast!When we at were notified a little over a year ago that the NREMT would no longer administer the Paramedic Psychom*otor exam, we immediately got to work creating our own summative psychom*otor exam. This week, we administered that exam to Paramedic Class 10. Students had to successfully pass three stations: cardiac arrest, medical emergency, and trauma.The first thing we did was establish a Psychom*otor Scoring Rubric, which would be used on all exams throughout the course. We immediately threw out the idea of the traditional line-by-line check box rubric. These rubrics don’t measure authentic learning and certainly don’t help create street-ready clinicians. Instead, we made a rubric that evaluated students in four areas: patient assessment, patient management, compassionate care, and leadership. The stations would be full 30-minute simulations where the student goes from dispatch to radio notification to the hospital during transport, creating realistic conditions. Students start in a scene area and then move to a makeshift ambulance for the transport portion of the testing scenario. Students go through the stations individually and are provided with a paramedic partner to assist them in the scenario. For some stations like cardiac arrest, we provide them 3 paramedic partners so that we can assess their scene management and leadership.But how do we assess individual skills such as IV placement, intubation, etc? We created 18 different “Fundamental Paramedic Skills.” Before students are permitted to sit for a module exam, they must pass the FPS for that module within 2 attempts. Thus, the module exam doesn’t focus on their ability to intubate, place an IO, or use the QinFlow to administer whole blood but instead focuses on their ability to utilize all these skills to provide excellent patient care.Third, we were committed to making these testing scenarios as realistic as possible. There’s no “I would do ___”. Everything that a student would do, they need to do. If they want to give a medication, they must draw it up and push it. We let them use whatever resources they would use in the field, including their phones! We encourage them to use their calculator, the Handtevy app, and their protocols just as we want them to do in the field. But wait, how do we assess their knowledge of drug doses?! We quiz them frequently in class on drugs. Last, we wanted to enhance our evaluation of students. We have two evaluators per station. We know that one person can’t see and hear everything. To ensure that our evaluators understand the rubric, our expectations, testing bias, etc., we created an online course that we require all evaluators to take. Both evaluators (one from our department and one from an outside program) must be senior paramedics who actively work as clinicians in the field and our paramedic instructors.

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