EMS Fellowship
Congratulations to Dr. Ricardo Padilla on completing his EMS Fellowship!
Welcome Dr. Scott Meeker, our 2023 EMS Fellow!
Dr. Troy Pennington & Dr. Scott Meeker
Faculty
Fellows
The ARMC EMS Fellowship is designed to provide emergency medicine physicians the opportunity to become board eligible for the sixth subspecialty in Emergency Medicine.
Emergency Medical Services (EMS) is a medical subspecialty that involves prehospital emergency patient care, including initial patient stabilization, treatment, and transport to hospitals in specially equipped ambulances or helicopters.
The purpose of EMS subspecialty certification is to standardize physician training and qualifications for EMS practice, improve patient safety and enhance the quality of emergency medical care provided to patients in the prehospital environment, and facilitate further integration of prehospital patient treatment into the continuum of patient care.
EMS became the sixth subspecialty available to ABEM diplomates on September 23, 2010, when it was approved by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS).
Individuals successfully completing our one-year fellowship will obtain sufficient didactic and practical knowledge to work and excel as a medical director of an EMS agency, an EMS researcher, or an Emergency Department-based EMS specialist.
The ARMC EMS Fellowship is a 12-month ACGME Accredited EMS Fellowship, that includes field care delivery, administrative oversight, administrative and academic projects, offline and online medical direction, and disaster & event medicine training. We partner with agencies including the San Bernardino County Fire Department, the Inland Counties Emergency Medical Services Authority (ICEMA), Inland Valley SWAT Team, Mercy Air, and AMR to ensure a sufficiently broad experience coupled with strong expertise. We have two ACGME approved fellowship spots each year.
The ARMC Division of EMS is active in several ongoing research and community projects, including one of California’s Community Paramedicine Pilot Programs, involvement in quality improvement and quality assurance activities for the region, policy development, tactical medicine, and we are the leaders in prehospital TXA research.
Click here for the Core Content of Emergency Medical Services Medicine.
Application
Please submit the following:
- Fill out the online EMS Fellowship Application
- Curriculum vitae
- Cover letter explaining your interest in EMS and Disaster Medicine, including any previous experience you may have
- Three letters of recommendation (one of which must be from your residency program director; another from your department’s EMS and Disaster Medicine Director if you have one at your institution)
- If you have any questions about the program, please contact Dr. Troy W. Pennington, Fellowship Program Director.
Requirements
- Graduate of an ACGME approved U.S. Emergency Medicine residency
- Board eligible or board certified in Emergency Medicine
- Qualified to work as an attending at ARMC
- Must hold a California Medical License and DEA license before starting fellowship
Application Timeline
- Applications will be accepted from May through October 1st and Interviews will be held early September through October.
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- August 19, 2020 Match Opens at 12:00 p.m. ET
- September 16, 2020 Ranking Opens at 12:00 p.m. ET
- October 21, 2020 Quota Change Deadline at 11:59 p.m. ET
- November 4, 2020 Rank Order List Certification Deadline at 9:00 p.m. ET
- November 18, 2020 Match Day at 12:00 p.m. ET
National Resident Matching Program
The National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) Specialties Matching Service® (SMS®). The SMS encompasses multiple Fellowship Matches representing more than 60 subspecialties. Each Fellowship Match maintains its own schedule of dates.
A Match allows applicants and program directors to consider each other without pressure, creates an impartial venue for matching applicants’ and program directors’ preferences, and establishes a uniform date for appointments to programs. A Match also fosters fairness in the selection process by ensuring all participants comply with the policies governing the Match and produces convenient applicant, program, and specialty-specific data.
Through SMS Fellowship Matches, applicants are “matched” to programs using the rank order lists of applicants and program directors that are processed by the NRMP matching algorithm. SMS Matches are managed through the NRMP’s Registration, Ranking, and Results® (R3®) system, the same software that is used for all NRMP Matches. Below is a great video that explains how the MATCH works.
Divisions
Tactical Medicine
ARMC’s Tactical Medicine program was founded by Dr. Michael Neeki, who has been serving the community with Inland Valley SWAT Team (IVS) since their foundation in 2012, as well as other agencies prior to that. Along with Dr. Benjamin Archambeau, Dr. Neeki trains with IVS for nearly 200 hours per year and deploys on-scene with the team to provide medical support when the team is activated. They are required to meet the same training and certification requirements as the officers on the team, and must continually practice their skills. They also regularly provide tactical medical training and other lectures to law enforcement, EMS, military, and hospital personnel in Southern California and around the country. Residents and students who go through the ARMC Emergency Medicine EMS rotation have the opportunity to attend SWAT training alongside the Tactical Medicine program physicians.
Tactical Medicine is the practice of providing medical care to special operations military and law enforcement personnel as well as civilians during wartime or police activities, when medical providers have limited resources and face a continuing threat to the lives of their patients and themselves.
Tactical Medicine has it’s foundation in the Vietnam war, as well as multiple national and international incidents, including the University of Texas clock tower shooting, Columbine High School shooting, the American wars in the Middle East, and many others. With every new conflict, crisis, or disaster, Tactical Medicine evolves and becomes more central for successful military and police operations. Treatment and operating principles are based on the guidelines of Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC), derived from military special operations in the 1990s, which emphasizes three different treatment phases:
- Care Under Fire
- Very limited treatment while under direct threat, as well as extraction from burning vehicles or buildings
- Tourniquet or massive hemorrhage control, such as direct pressure, victim self-aid
- Tactical Field Care
- Rapid assessment and treatment of the most life-threatening, rapidly correctable injuries using the MARCH mnemonic
- Needle chest decompression, dressings, hemostatic agents, packaging of patient
- Tactical Evacuation Care
- All interventions that can be provided in the field until definitive treatment in reached
Ventilation management, blood products, chest tube placement, additional access
- All interventions that can be provided in the field until definitive treatment in reached
Tactical medical providers must be equipped and prepared to handle a variety of traumatic as well as medical and environmental concerns under austere conditions. They must
- avoid becoming a patient themselves,
- remove patients from danger and prevent additional wounds,
- recognize and provide interventions for correctable life-threatening injuries,
- be able to operate within a tactical team (such as SWAT) and provide cover or return fire as needed, and
- help to complete the mission.
They must have an understanding of law enforcement or military protocols and have a firm grasp of the medical-legal aspects of operating in an exceptionally high-risk environment. Tactical Medicine, under any environment that it is applied, is a physically, mentally, and emotionally challenging medical discipline that calls to unique individuals to help others when their need is most dire, at great personal risk to themselves. It provides an opportunity to serve the community in a capacity that most others cannot or will not, and gives those that are willing to take it on an equally high level of reward and satisfaction.