First Responder

The Emergency Medical Services Academy (EMSA) is a division of the Department of Emergency Medicine At the University of New Mexico Health Science Center. Located within a Level 1 Trauma Center, the EMS Academy is able to offer the most complete and well rounded First Responder training in the Southwest. Graduates of the EMS Academy are among the most well trained and qualified in the country.

Students at the EMS Academy benefit from the vast array of resources found within the School of Medicine. These include direct physicians input in curriculum development, state of the art lab facilities and equipment, the Health Sciences Center Library and multiple state and local agencies that contribute to the training program.

The First Responder training program began in 1979 when the Department of Transportation (DOT) resurrected the "Crash Injury Management" course, updated it and renamed it "First Responder". Today it consists of two parts: didactic and lab and has been expanded to approximately 48 hours of instruction.

Twenty hours of Didactic Instruction includes the minimum standard DOT curriculum as well as additional curricula that prepares a First Responder to stay on the forefront of prehospital field techniques and the advancing knowledge base of prehospital care.

Twenty hours of Lab instruction includes individual instruction in airway management, semiautomatic defibrillation, patient packaging, trauma management and patient assessment skills. Special skills include a block of material on hazardous material response that results in an "Awareness" Level Hazardous Material certification.

Graduates of the program are awarded a certificate of completion.

Admission to the program is based on an open enrollment system. The First Responder course is taught at a variety of services, junior colleges and universities. For a current listing of locations and dates please contact the EMS Academy at (505) 272-5757 or fax (505) 244-1505: e-mail emsacad@unm.edu.

The Academy offers instruction in prehospital provider courses an refreshers at the First Responder, EMT-Basic, EMT-Intermediate and EMT-Paramedic levels. A variety of special courses are taught as well: EMT-Instructor, Vehicular Extrication, Wilderness EMT and Farm Rescue.