University Expects High-Level Care

The University of the South and Grundy EMS have formed a new partnership that will assure that Sewanee residents will receive the highest level of emergency medical care locally available, and that Sewanee undergraduates will be able to train to deliver, and participate in delivering, that standard of care.

Months in the making, work on the partnership began following a report from the Committee on Emergency Medical Service, which was appointed by University Provost John Swallow.

The committee was chaired by Laurence Alvarez and included members Ronnie Hoosier (Sewanee resident and member of the Sewanee Fire Department), Dennis Meeks (Sewanee resident), Taylor Stavely (former Sewanee student EMS director and current medical student), and Adam Tucker (Sewanee resident and former EMT). The committee recognized that the State of Tennessee has mandated a higher level of initial training for EMTs, which will require a greater commitment of student time in order to participate.

The committee determined that “having an ambulance service that provides the benefit of Advanced Life Support (ALS) rather than Basic Life Support (BLS) is a desirable goal… The ability of ALS to provide medical treatment that cannot be provided by BLS at the site and in transit could be critical in the case where transit to the hospital takes a substantial amount of time, as would be the experience and training of the paramedics who must travel with the ALS ambulance.”

The committee also desired to involve students in the delivery of this care as much as possible, and affirmed that “the experience Sewanee EMT students have is so valuable that we think any arrangement for EMS in the area should utilize their training and participation and preserve this service opportunity for students in the future.”

The University agreed, and remains committed to enabling students to participate in the service. With the committee’s goals in mind, the University and Grundy EMS have developed a partnership to achieve both purposes.

The University and Grundy EMS will share in the renovation of a portion of the Mabel Ward building near Southern Tennessee Medical Center/Emerald-Hodgson Hospital, enabling professional personnel and students to be jointly stationed at the ambulance departure site. From that location, Grundy EMS and Sewanee students will be able to deliver Advanced Life Support care to students, faculty, staff and residents of Sewanee and its environs.

“This remarkable partnership,” said Swallow, “demonstrates how, by working together with local communities and organizations, we can accomplish far more than we could by ourselves. The University thanks Sewanee Chief of Police Marie Eldridge and Grundy Emergency Medical Service Director Don Hutchinson for working closely together on this strong partnership to maintain medical care, and medical education, at the highest levels.”