Duke University EMS is a unique organization on Duke's campus. We are an all volunteer, student run division of the police department that provides first responder services for all 911 medical emergencies on the campus and medical center of Duke University. Duke EMS was founded by Matt Womble, Tim Pieh and Sacha Picard. These three students had volunteered as Emergency Medical Technicians at home and saw a need for improved EMS response at Duke. These three students began working with administrators in 1993 to form a student run rescue squad.

Duke University Rescue Squad, as it was originally known, began serving the Duke community by providing stand by coverage for basketball games in the spring of 1994. By 1995 Duke Rescue had expanded to responding to emergency calls. Members were dispatched by pager and responded on foot. In the same year the first EMT-Basic class was taught on campus by Duke LifeFlight. Campus response was improved in 1996 when Duke EMS purchased six Motorola Radios, allowing EMTs to communicate with each other, Durham Country EMS and police officers. In 2003 under the new name of Duke University EMS, the squad shifted from operating under Student Affairs to become a division of the Duke University Police Department. Duke University EMS made one of the greatest improvements to our campus service in 2004 when we purchased a Chevy Trailblazer that was equipped and certified by the North Carolina Office of EMS as a non-transporting emergency vehicle. In 2005 Duke EMS was given an apartment on Central Campus from which to base operations, allowing crews to respond as a unit and cutting down on response time. In the same year Duke EMS made a commitment to staffing summer coverage, allowing Duke EMS to provide at least 300 days of emergency service per year.

Mission Statement and Core Values

The nature of our organization has changed from a squad based on a volunteer model where members answer pagers and respond on foot to one with a permanent weekly shift schedule, 800 Megahertz radios that let us cooperate with many outside agencies and a quick response vehicle. However despite all of these changes our mission has not changed

Duke University EMS exists create a safer environment for the Duke community by providing superior emergency medical care. Duke EMS accomplish this mission through 911- response and special events medical care for the thousands of people who pass through the Duke University campus and medical center each day.

In addition to our 911 response and special events coverage Duke EMS also seeks to provide excellent care through adherence to our core values of Professionalism, Respect, Dedication and Cooperation


Professionalism

Although our members are fulltime students and part time EMTs, we always act as professionals. Our members are held to demanding standards, we meet or exceed all state requirements for Basic Life Support EMS agencies. Our entire squad is trained and certified to the North Carolina Emergency Medical Technician Basic level. In addition to this training, a sizable number of our members are trained and certified at the Emergency Medical Technician Intermediate levels, giving them training in Advanced Life Support techniques. In addition to this education we participate in regular training and continuing education to ensure that our skills remain at their peak in order to better serve our community.

Respect

Because of the open nature of our campus and the number of patients that are seen in the hospital, Duke EMS serves a variety of people from different backgrounds and experiences including faculty, staff, students and visitors. All of these patients are entitled to respect and Duke EMS members treat every patient with respect and compassion.

Dedication

Duke EMS members are full time students at Duke University who volunteer between 5 and 38 hours per week in order to serve their community. We sacrifice weekends and weeknights to attend continuing education classes and learn how to serve our community better. Our dedication is what drives our constant concern for increasing our proficiency, professionalism and capabilities in order to better serve our community.

Cooperation

Duke EMS could not operate in the way that we do with the support of a number of organism. We are extremely grateful for the support of the Duke University Police Department, the Durham City and County Fire Departments, Durham County EMS. We are also grateful for support from the Duke University Emergency Department and Student Health. In pursuing our goal of providing superior emergency medical care to the campus of Duke University, our strong, productive relationship will all of these entities is invaluable.

We hope that this page has clarified who we are, what our mission is and how we work to achieve our goals. Most of all we would like you to know that we are students, and we are volunteer Emergency Medical Technicians in pursuit of professional excellence in order to provide superior emergency medical care to this campus.