Meet the Research Fellows!

The future of EMS depends on research that drives better decisions, stronger systems, and improved patient care. 

In this episode of Registry Insider, host Bill Seifarth sits down with the National Registry's three current EMS Research Fellows to discuss their journeys into research, the groundbreaking projects they're leading, and how the fellowship is shaping the next generation of EMS scientists. From workforce resilience and cardiac arrest research to airway management and public health, the conversation offers an inside look at how research is helping advance the EMS profession. The fellows also share what it's like to balance doctoral studies with full-time work at the National Registry, the value of mentorship, and the unique opportunities the fellowship provides. Whether you're an EMS clinician, educator, leader, or someone passionate about the future of prehospital care, this episode offers an inspiring look at the people and research driving the profession forward. 

To learn more about the National Registry EMS Research Fellowship and upcoming application opportunities, visit NREMT.org.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:15

Welcome to the Registry Insider. I'm Bill Seiferth from the National Registry VMTs. And on today's episode, we're talking about the National Registry's EMS Research Fellowship. Joining me are the three current fellows, Chris, Jacob, and Kayla, who are the three fellows that are enrolled in the process right now. But I will tell you that the aspect of research is one of the key fundamentals of what we do at the National Registry. We're known for obviously our certification and recertification or quote unquote the tests. But equally important, the National Registry also does a plethora of research as well as has this research fellowship program that gives back in support of the EMS profession. The Natural Registry's mission is to support the EMS profession through partnerships, research, and lifelong assessment of clinical competence. And to that end, as it relates to research, we give back and support the EMS profession, as I said, through this fellowship program. So have joining me today are, as I said, the three fellows who are currently enrolled within the fellowship. And thank you all for joining me, taking time to talk a little bit about the program and your experiences with it. So, Chris, how long have you been in the fellowship program? And this is obvious you're almost done.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Oh, yeah. So uh thanks so much for having us here, by the way. Um so actually tomorrow I've been here for four years, so I'm super excited and getting ready to finish up the PhD program at the Ohio State University.

SPEAKER_03 1:45

Thank you for emphasizing the.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Most definitely. Um so very excited.

SPEAKER_03 1:49

Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Cool. And Jacob, how about you? What's your um I actually just hit my uh beginning of my third year uh at OSU and the National Registry here. Um so I am hopefully what I would say is halfway, but you never really know until you're done. So let's uh hope that we are. Awesome. And Kayla, how about you?

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Yes, I just completed my first year, so I'll be going into my second year of the fellowship and PhD program.

SPEAKER_03 2:15

Wonderful. So um the three of you have explain a little bit about your background and EMS. Obviously, you the research team has their own podcast, so people may know you from there, but in case they don't know you, tell a little bit about your background, if you wouldn't mind starting, Chris. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Um I started off as uh EMT in about 2000. Um, went and did my AEMT, got my paramedic, worked on a ground unit uh and a county unit for a county back in North Carolina, worked as a critical care, um worked on a helicopter, um, ground transportation, um, started teaching full-time, uh part-time in 2005, full-time. I started teaching a paramedic program um at a community college in North Carolina back in 2014. Um, spent that time uh until about 22 when I came up here. Um so I've done a lot of uh different things, got my bachelor's and master's degrees through Western Carolina University. And so I feel like I've spent my whole adult career uh in a classroom in somewhere EMS, in the classroom somewhere. So, yes, very much so. Great. Thanks for sharing.

SPEAKER_03 3:22

Jacob, how about you?

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Sure. Yeah, I have uh been a nationally registered paramedic since 2012, held on to that all the way through. Um and I have, like Chris, worked in a couple different environments, not quite as much, but I um started on the ambulance in Pittsburgh, and uh I've moved around to my hometown in Buffalo. I was in Denver for a while. Um, I've also taught some AHA classes, some of your CPRs and your ACLS stuff like that. And most recently, I moved to Ohio um prior to joining the fellowship, and I actually worked in the emergency department, uh level one trauma center, and again, the OSU. So it was there that I also worked on my master's degree, my MPH, and ultimately uh since I was in Columbus, now I'm here today. Well, phenomenal. Good. Thank you, Kayla.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

And I have been a nationally registered EMT since 2018. I actually started kind of dipping my toes into emergency medicine as the unit clerk of a level one trauma center. And I very quickly became jealous of all of my colleagues who were caring for patients, bringing patients in via the ambulance. So obtaining my EMT license, working kind of half in half between the hospital setting and the ambulance setting. Um, and then a little bit later on, I got my master's in public health from the University of Missouri. And I've been, I was the CARES coordinator for the state of Missouri prior to coming into our program.

SPEAKER_03 4:43

Awesome. So a lot of uh rich background, and certainly you're adding to that background your educational experience you're getting at the Ohio State University, which can ultimately, as I said, give back and support the EMS profession. Um, if you wouldn't mind, just and we'll start with you, Kayla. What are some of the some of the research that you've worked on within the last within the last year since you're one year in?

SPEAKER_01 5:05

So one year in, I have thoroughly enjoyed being able to kind of have a tablespoon of everything, I like to say. Um, been working very closely with our collaborators, workforce stuff, our recertification research that we accomplish. I am now going into a little bit of cardiac arrest research myself amongst our team. Um, but you know, every day is kind of a little bit different, which I think is very natural for anyone in EMS to appreciate.

SPEAKER_03 5:35

That is good. So, yeah, the same thing every day is a bit boring in most EMS to agree with that. Jacob, how about you? What have been your experience of what have you worked on that's of uh particular interest to you?

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Um I'd like to think that I have a slightly different um kind of work uh motivation and goal than these two guys here. Um I like to think about large system type uh problems and questions. I we all know about workforce and resilience and um the demand on EMS. So I've looked at things about EMS clinicians and their places where they work or how they do at their job. Some things like the organizational culture of where they work and how that impacts whether people want to stay or leave or how happy they are. I've also looked at whether EMS clinicians themselves, everybody out here, whether they think EMS is something that you should get into. And um, that's a really kind of an important aspect of EMS that people often forget is that we're not uh growing on trees or anything. We need to really bring people into our workforce. So big system level policy type questions are what I'm aiming for, and I'm looking forward to working on some more of that in the future.

SPEAKER_03 6:37

Phenomenal. So um, you know, as you you said, there's not a large number of researchers that focus on EMS. I believe this is you are the seventh, eighth, and ninth fellows in the fellowship program, if I'm not mistaken, respectively. So phenomenal. Um Chris, how about you?

SPEAKER_02 6:54

What what have you worked on recently that's been fun, intriguing, or recently I've worked on a uh dissertation the past year. So uh been working with uh national database or sorry, national uh registry clinicians and also clinicians through Alabama, the state of Alabama, asking them questions about tobacco and their policies and how their policies may influence their tobacco use overall. So that's been very interesting. Uh looking forward to you know put some abstract together for NMSP coming up, uh, publishing that stuff. Um, definitely the airway stuff that I've worked on. I've worked on a bunch of airway manuscripts that have been able to be published. Um, Lay Person the Locksone has really been uh a strong paper that I've put out uh about a year ago. Went to CNN and some other I went to CNN Health. Um, and then recently I actually just got a doctoral research award through uh Ohio State University for uh a graduate uh PhD graduate student that's graduating this year. And it was actually layperson uh ministered in the lock song was the paper that I used for the uh the publication example. And so uh it's been very good. I actually got um uh did a podcast with Physicians Weekly here recently. They were super nice and uh very kind to invite me on to do a podcast with them. So it's definitely been a wild adventure here recently with a lot of publications that we put together.

SPEAKER_03 8:20

That's awesome. And congrats, obviously, on your your award um as well as the the research that certainly you've done, but all three of you have done in contribution to the profession. Let's talk a little bit about the fellowship program itself. So um obviously, you know, you each of you kind of talked about your journey and a little bit of a curiosity or for more information, more knowledge. Um, and then you applied and well, here you are. Uh but once you apply, and we'll get into the where the people can go to find out more about the fellowship, talk about the process. What does the typical week look like for year one, year two, year three, year four for the for the process? Um if any of Chris, if you want to start with it, because you've been through all four years.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

Um I would definitely say the the process for a first year student um is learning the processes, learning the learning the program, learning about you know uh how your work-life balance, about how much you can do at work, how much you're gonna end up doing at school, um, because you're taking a full-time program at um at Ohio State too. I mean, it's a PhD program, so it's gonna be a full load. And it depends on really how long it's been since you've been in school, right? Has it been two years since you got your master's degree and finished up? Are you still kind of fresh? Uh are you just out of it like Jacob was? Um, or not, you know, Kayla had been out for a couple years. So, you know, you got to get back into that work-life experience of, you know, what do you how how much you want to do? And honestly, coming here, uh, if you're doing EMS research, then you know I'm super excited about it. So I want to do more and more and more, but then, oh yeah, there's this classwork over here that I've got to do too. So I think it's the learning experience about how much you can do versus how much you should be doing. And then obviously when you get into your second and third year, you start kind of learning a routine, you understand it, you understand the timelines that you have to go through. And so I think a lot of it is learning. And then a lot of it also is learning um more than you've ever learned before, talking with people that you've never interacted with before. Um, so it is a it is a fire hose, I would say, initially, when you start.

SPEAKER_03 10:23

One thing that I will add is that um you said work life balance. So you're actually all three of you are employed by the National Registry, and um you're full-time employees. So you're you're working and you're going to school um several days a week. And part of the work is you're doing research, uh, which again adds value to your education, but um it also adds value to the profession. So how about Jacob, what are your experiences have been in the two complete years now, starting your third year?

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Um, I think first of all, the fellowship really offers an opportunity that uh traditional PhD funding might not uh carry through even all your way through your program and gives us a little bit of stability, a little bit of resources. Um, we have a nice salary here. So that's something that doesn't often go along with your PhD program. You might end up having to do some teaching or some side projects for a professor. So that's one thing that's really nice is we really get to focus on our coursework at OSU, and then we do our research with the registry. And it has been set up so that we're starting from the very beginning that we're involved in these projects. Um, there's people that might get through their whole PhD program um outside of our fellowship and maybe end up with a couple publications or maybe five would be a great achievement. And I think Chris has maybe had five in the last year, uh, something like that. So um I think it's just an immense opportunity. Plus, it gives us kind of a dual mentorship situation. As a PhD student, you obviously have a mentor through the College of Public Health for us. Um, but we also have an amazing um EMS physician mentor here at the registry, Dr. Rosh Panchel, who is an MD PhD uh, and he's also a medical director. So he's really in it and he really does care about the research too. So we get the training, we get a little bit of food and housing support, and then we get an amazing amount of research opportunity from the very first minute that we're here, including the mentorship, as you said, by the experience.

SPEAKER_03 12:18

Absolutely. So, Kayla, what have your experiences been um thus far? Obviously, finishing your first year.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Yes. So, as Chris briefly highlighted, I had been out of school for almost four years before coming into the program. So definitely kind of coming back into the groove of things always starts out a little bit difficult. I also had to uproot my life in Missouri to here. So going through several iterations of moving things, moving my cats, um quite the process. Um but thankfully I knew I was coming into this program already so supported by Dr. Panchel, by Chris, by Jacob. I think I already had a really good relationship with both of them before coming here. So they already served as an incredible support system, which my advisor through OSU, Dr. Wang, said, I don't think you should come here unless you know you're supported. So the decision became very easy. And then also just managing work-life balance obviously can be a little bit tricky. I almost had to incorporate my registry work as if it was just an additional class in my coursework and knowing how to build in the time during the week for all of my assignments. So I would say personally, I think my first year was very successful. And I am I love school, so I'm really excited to continue the pursuit. Um, but they everyone here has made it so easy for me.

SPEAKER_03 13:53

That's so good to hear. Really good to hear. So obviously, uh some of our listeners, um, whether largely are educators, some uh regulators, um, some clinicians as well, uh, might be curious about this fellowship program. So where can they go to find out more about it? Or and when can they apply approximately time period?

SPEAKER_02 14:14

So I think the fellowship actually starts uh taking applications August 1st coming up this year of 2026. Um and the fellowship will actually start for that person in June of 2027. So there'll be a little bit of a process, they'll put an application in, applications be looked through, people that go to the next level will be called for an interview. After the interview, eventually one person will be selected. That one person will have then have to get into the PhD program at OSU on their own. There's no, you know, help or anything like that. They will have to get into a normal student process. If they get selected to get into the PhD program, then at that time um the National Registry will offer them the opportunity to work here. That process will start in June. They will start on as a full employee and then we'll go from there.

SPEAKER_03 15:05

So go to enteremt.org and they can use the use the search function to find out more about that. We also have some pub or something posted on social media, undoubtedly.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

I think there's gonna be a link that's probably gonna be associated with this podcast as well.

SPEAKER_03 15:18

Yes. Um, furthermore, um some further exciting news, which may or may not be known by our our viewers and listeners, is that uh we're looking to bring on a full-time researcher um later this year. So that full-time researcher will be focused on doing nothing but research. They don't have to go to classes, obviously they they they finished their terminal degree, ideally. And then uh he or she will be able to um dedicate their full time to doing nothing but research, which is very exciting for for certainly the profession, but also for the national registry. Um anything, any pending thoughts or closing thoughts as it relates to the fellowship program and or your experiences um for for the last couple years or last year uh that you've been involved in. Any any closing thoughts? Chris, I'll start with you.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

I personally think if you want to take your understanding of research or your um your ability to be able to affect people and affect this work this workforce as a profession um on a larger level, uh, you're not gonna beat the opportunities that you're gonna find at the National Registry. You get to work with all kinds of national stakeholders and so many things, and just the opportunity to be here and the future opportunities that this fellowship uh gives. I mean, just look at the previous fellows, uh Rimley Crow, Rebecca Cash, um, Tony Fernandez. I mean, these are excellent Jonathan. Jonathan Powell, most definitely. I mean, these are excellent researchers that have gone out, went through this program, and they're making waves of you know new information and helping people understand EMS as a whole uh throughout the United States. And I think it's just an amazing opportunity. Great.

SPEAKER_03 16:59

Jacob, how about you, your your thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 17:01

I'm really excited for this program, not because of only myself and my achievements and my future work, but I think that being part of the College of Public Health, we're really starting to shift what people think about EMS, how they use it, um, that there is utility within public health, public health surveillance, and that there's also research that needs to be done beyond just simple uh small medical research. There's system stuff, there's public health care that's involved. So I think we're um might I even say like there's a paradigm shift here happening, bringing EMS to a high-level academic public health space that wouldn't have been possible without this fellowship that I am hopefully number, what are we seven, eight, nine? So hopefully number eight, but we're we're getting there. So I'm super excited that we're making waves uh across all of public health. Awesome. Kayla, how about you?

SPEAKER_03 17:48

Closing thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Yes. Obviously, Chris and Jacob said it perfectly, so now I'm just here trying to wrap up the loose ends. But I think one thing I can absolutely say is through this program, your mentorship that you receive is beyond, I think, any mentorship you would obtain anywhere else between Dr. Panchel, the collaborators. Chris and Jacob.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

You pause there for a moment.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

Because I truly do appreciate all of their individual mentorship for me too, as a student, especially. Um, so I I don't think you would ever be shy of mentorship here. And that is so important when we're considering our future careers in this work. And now, even looking at JP, Jonathan Powell, right now, he is wanting to be in that mentorship position too. So I think that is something else we produce. We produce unbelievable researchers, we produce unbelievable EMS research mentorship.

SPEAKER_03 18:48

Fantastic. Good way to uh tie up loose in. So thank you all for joining me and sharing your experiences with the fellowship program. And if you are interested or you may know someone who is, again, you can go to nrmt.org and under the search feature, um, type up uh fellowship, EMS Fellowship, research fellowship, uh, and or just stay tuned to our social media and you'll hear more about it. The application date is uh August 1st, is what we're shooting for of uh 2026. So again, nrmt.org or social media. Thank you as well for joining us, and as always, uh stay safe. Thank you for joining us for this episode. If you wouldn't mind, please click the like and subscribe buttons as well as the notifications so you can get notifications of upcoming episodes. Also, for the latest and greatest happenings out of the National Registry, feel free to go to nrmbt.org. Thank you very much, and again, stay safe.