Years ago, when I worked in a 911 center, I don’t ever remember hearing the terms “vicarious trauma,” or “compassion fatigue.” Occasionally “burnout” was mentioned to describe how we felt after long stretches of intense work; although it mostly expressed years of exhaustion and time spent in the emergency dispatch center. Not much attention was given to the day-to-day stress and mental trauma that was happening along the way.

Today, the terms vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue are becoming widely used among psychologists who study the emergency dispatch profession. Not surprisingly, it turns out emergency dispatchers are uniquely susceptible to vicarious trauma—the emotional and psychological harm caused by frequent and intense remote exposure to incidents of crime, violence, severe injuries and illness, and other catastrophic events.

In this issue, Paul Bourgeois, a previously published AEDR author, provides us a look at vicarious trauma through the lens of the emergency dispatch workforce itself, using a national survey of emergency dispatchers to measure their awareness of this phenomenon in their everyday work activities. The author’s hope is that these insights will help us develop better interventions in shaping a more resilient and well-adjusted emergency dispatcher.

Another research article looks at the use of a secondary clinical triage and treatment system in one emergency medical dispatch center in the United Kingdom where and overburdened ambulance system has had to adjust its service model by providing clinical support to those patients who cannot receive an ambulance response in a timely manner. Using both a frontline medical triage process with trained emergency medical dispatchers along with a secondary triage system using skilled clinicians providing consultation and both ambulance response as well as referral to non-ambulance care, we can learn much about a best-practice model for such a system.

We present a case study that follows an interesting seizure case that highlights the importance of using the Breathing Verification Diagnostic Tool (BVDxT) for all seizure cases where the patient is not clearly awake or waking up, and the importance of staying on the line with a caller when the patient is not stable.

 Our research spotlight in this issue introduces you to another experienced and knowledgeable contributor to the expanding field of emergency dispatch research, Dr. Andre V Jones.

 Finally, from the entire staff of AEDR, we wish you a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year!

 

Sincerely,

Greg Scott

Editor-in-Chief