*EVERYBODY PANIC!

*Not really.

Two weeks ago Stephan agreed to attend a meeting on oe of his days off. He didn't read the agenda. He showed up in dirty shorts and a ball cap. He expected to be there for about an hour. About 5 hours after the meeting started, he came out with a new title: Trauma Coordinator. Immediately he was given several books to read, and told to attend two conferences as soon as possible. This week he is at one of them run by the state of Montana's Departments of EMS & Trauma Systems".

Essentially, from the moment a person unfortunatelly requires Emergency Assistance, to minute they arrive in the ER, the possibility of a trip (via ambulance or airplane) to another facility, to the final health outcome, the Trauma Coordinator is there. Not physically there, but he needs to know the players, the systems, the vocabulary, and make sure that everyone has everything they need, and that they're all speaking the same language.

The job involves creating procedures, teaching those to everyone, creating paperwork to track the procedures, and keeping track of all the paperwork. He also must track inventory and supplies and be sure they always adhere to state standards. He follows via the paperwork and phone calls the path of the patient. He will make sure that the way we "package" our patients when we send them out makes it easy for the next location to treat them. It is a very involved job, one that he was at first a little nervous about, but now is very excited for. It integrates his community development skill set into the health care knowledge he is still learning to use.

Of course, this means he will be even more busy on his days off, a fact that is easier now that we're done with road trips until Christmas. If you want to see us, please let us know when you're planning to be here!