LAS

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It will come of no surprise to you dear readers that I spent the morning relishing in lectures concerning all things London Ambulance Service. It's been a busy two years since I've been there and by the end of the week I'll have heard lectures that touch on the Diamond Jubilee, Royal Wedding, 7/7, 2011 Riots, and the Olympic Games. So many special events, so little time.

I believe that many of our heavily populated cities can learn a lot from the LAS model. I believe it to be a simpler version of the incident command system that we use. It's flaws were pointed out though in my favorite part of the lectures so far. The Lecturer said that on 7/7, the London Fire Brigade were confused over the triage process and concerned that patients were being overlooked. (take this 3rd hand info with a grain of salt)  But, this reiterated that communication and knowledge of operations for all agencies is paramount for a successful response. I also thought it was pretty funny as I like what I call the separation of church and state, or the separation of fire and EMS. Though, if they are so disconnected that it causes confusion on the ground, that's a bit of a problem.

I was happy to see I wasn't the only one interested in the inner workings of event planning for a thing like the Diamond Jubilee. I guess that there wasn't much that was still applicable from the last time it happened in 1897. I'm pretty sure that they didn't have motorcycle response units then, but you never know.  I just had a wonderful image of responding to a call on a penny farthing. That would work well, except that you'd have to splint your own arms before attending to the patient.

But, enough about that. I owe a big thanks to Maddog Medic for publishing my first ever interview yesterday. I think it turned out well and may be worth a read if you have the patience and maybe if you are new to the blog. Catch it here. Also, I've unofficially hired him as my publicist.

I'm off to caffeinate and get ready for some relevant lit review. Then I'm off to the EMS Today 'trick-or-treat' time at the expo to collect as much free stuff as I can carry. That, and pretend that I have the budget and buying power at my job to drive away in a fancy new Sprinter.

P.S. I am sitting in the lobby at the conference center and a fire truck went by. I looked up to see every single person in the immediate area watch it go. Squirrels!

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