The unexpected passing late last year of respected EMS medical director Craig Manifold, DO, shook up the EMS community both in his home jurisdiction of San Antonio, Tex., and nationally as well.
On a larger scale the sudden loss of Manifold cast a spotlight on the medical director position and its pivotal role in the provision of emergency medical services. To explore this topic in depth, EMS World recently spoke with E. Stein Bronsky, MD, and Joshua Hartman, MBA, NRP. Bronsky is co-chief medical director for the Colorado Springs Fire Department and AMR in El Paso County, Colo. Hartman is senior vice president of public safety for EMS World and its parent company, HMP Global, and a paramedic with the Chevra Hatzalah Volunteer Ambulance Corps in New York City.
In September, amid swirling political controversy surrounding a death in police custody and other high-profile cases, the city council of Aurora, Colo., did something the EMS community might find bewildering: It banned the prehospital use of ketamine.
The resolution, driven by council member Curtis Gardner but passed unanimously, prevents paramedics with Aurora Fire Rescue and Falck Rocky Mountain from using the drug pending completion of a review prompted by the August 2019 death of Elijah McClain a case that drew intensified scrutiny following the 2020 killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
Officers in the case responded to a 9-1-1 report of a “sketchy,” possibly agitated subject wearing a ski mask and ended up struggling with McClain, a 23-year-old Black man, ultimately using a carotid hold that knocked him out. When he regained consciousness, paramedics sedated him with ketamine. McClain then went into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital and died a few days late