A recent email from an EMS physician in Maryland who attended the talk at the NAEMSP Conference in 2024:

​

I wanted you to know just how far your message has reached and the impact it has had on our system.

​

In Carroll County Maryland we have developed a educational program inspired by your lecture at NAEMSP and based on much of the literature you were kind enough to share with me this past spring.

 

I am pleased to report that we have successfully and safely rolled out a Ketamine program in our County for our EMS Chase Cars and created SOPs regarding the use of physical restraint and chemical sedation (not limited to Ketamine).  We have also developed a training program for our EMS clinicians which includes: 

• Ketamine Pharmacology: indications, contraindications, common side effects and how to safely manage them.

•   Review of State Protocol and County SOPs regarding agitated patients and the use of physical restraint and/or chemical sedation

• Death in Custody: a case review 

 

Furthermore, we have partnered with our local Sheriff's Department, and I have been given an opportunity to give the Death in Custody Lecture during the Sheriff's Department in-service.  I have donated hundreds of hours of my own time to this cause and the content has reached all of our Sheriff's Deputies, Municipal Police and Corrections Officers in Carroll County.  

 

We are a small rural community, the type of place where everyone knows everyone, and we have been able to use this topic to build alliances between our LE partners and our newly established combined career and volunteer EMS System.  I am now working with our local law enforcement partners to expand their medical skills and knowledge not just as it relates to the agitated patient, but also in mass casualty response, TCCC, CPR and Stop the Bleed.   We are also working with Stryker to find grants with the goal of putting and AED on every Sheriff's Department vehicle.