Well Captain Tom, you asked…
“OK HM, It’s November. When does 999 land in SF?”
…and I’ll answer. Sunday.
Paramedic Team Leader Mark Glencorse will be the guest of the San Francisco Fire Department beginning on Sunday November 8th, when he touches down at SFO. From that moment until he departs on the 16th we will be comparing our systems at the ground level, care giver to care giver. No “company line” no prepared statements, just two friends meeting and getting the low down on what is really happening in each other’s systems.
Later this week I’ll be adding links to the sidebar here at HMHQ to help you follow along on our experience. Follow us on twitter @thehappymedic and @ukmedic999. The new slideshow on the right hand side there is the Project Flickr slideshow. That will certainly be added to as we go along. Daily if not hourly.
Then there is the youtube channel we established that many of you are already following (subscribed to). We have decided that the visiting medic will do his best (nights of drinking aside) to do a nightly update as to the day’s activities, impressions and thoughts. Mark will of course be updating you mostly at first, then I’ll start when I arrive in Newcastle on the 19th.
We are both not only representing our Departments but, more importantly I think, the power of this new creature we all have come to embrace, social media. Twitter, Facebook, blogs, online news, flickr, IM, SMS, all these amazing on demand services at our fingertips and we’ve harnessed them for a good cause, making ourselves better care givers.
So not to make this another boring “the Project is coming” post, maybe something new?
Since the official SFFD press release went out today I guess it’s fair to tell you who I am.
the Happy Medic is, and always has been, Justin Schorr, a Firefighter/Paramedic currently employed with the San Francisco Fire Department.
That’s me with the patches-Photo Credit SF Chronicle.
I hold a Bachelor’s of Science in Emergency Medical Services from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine where I studied under Larry Cobb and Rick Lynn, to name a few. I was one of the first 10 graduates of the BS in EMS (no giggling) program there and was one of 4 to first stand within the School of Medicine group to graduate (God they hated that!)
My career started as a Fire Explorer, then as a volunteer firefighter getting hired at 18 with a small Indian Reservation outside Albuquerque, New Mexico. Talk about rural EMS.
I later moved on to a small suburban department struggling to find it’s identity with a strong Public Safety model that relied on fire trained police officers to assist when emergencies struck. It was there that I learned the best way to confirm a house has been ventilated prior to forcing the door is to do it yourself.
Now I find myself in beautiful San Francisco and raising my family.
So there you have it. The first official, documented privacy violation of the Happy Medic, my own.
See you at the big one,
HM
Also on The Happy Medic…
- The British are coming! The British are coming! – November 8, 2009
- Mark’s Orientation to the SFFD – October 26, 2009
- Meeting the NEAS Executive Team – My UK EMS Conclusion – February 1, 2010
- Report from England – Part I – December 4, 2009
