A form to help assure proper liability coverage for EMS students performing advanced skills at their place of employment or volunteer affiliation.
We EMS educators struggle to get our students the advanced skill exposure they really need–this is especially true of advanced airway interventions. One of the reasons for this is trust and liability.
Since students are KNOWN by those with whom they already work or volunteer, they are (hopefully) already in a zone of trust. Therefore, it is in everyone’s best interest to allow students to accumulate credit for at least some portion of advanced skills in those familiar environments.
However, then we must manage liability issues. When students are in “our” EMS program shirts, our medical director and liability insurance covers them. This is not the case when they are in an EMS provider uniform–they are under the rules, regs, and SOPs of their organization.
Is everyone “covered” should an untoward outcome occur? That really comes down to one question: did their medical director give them permission to practice those advanced skills?
This form (EMS Student Advanced Skills Permission Form) is meant to address that question.
The first page collects signatures which attest that all parties understand the goal and constraints. The second tells students how to document the skill within Sterling.
Do not construe this as legal advice–rather use it as a scaffold for your own use–and then pass it through your legal department to feel assured it is protective.
One thing you do NOT want to do is shrug your shoulders and assume “it’ll be ok” with no such written record. Everything is ok until it isn’t.
Invitation to Contribute
If YOU have developed your own form or guide or tool, and you’d like to share it with other educators, please reach out to us [email protected] and we can host it for you and attribute authorship. What did you have to build which you wish you’d just had on hand? Yeah, that stuff is what we’re looking for.