“Living in Pittsburgh, I am a huge Mr. Rogers fan and that’s the thing. He said,” When there are bad things happening, look for the helpers.” I always want to be a helper.”
Meet Dr. Frank Guyette , MD MPH, STAT MedEvac’s Medical Director. He has been with STAT MedEvac for 19 years and counting. Guyette’s first four years was as a flight physician during residency and fellowship. After that, he climbed the ranks to become the associate medical director for 6 years. For the last ten years, Dr. Guyette has been the STAT MedEvac Medical Director. Get to know more of Dr. Frank Guyette with the following Q&A:
How has your background on public safety shaped over the years?
I come from a family of first responders. My grandfather was a firefighter, and my father is a police officer. When I was 15 years old, I joined our local rescue squad and became an EMT. I continued to pursue that interest through college, and I realized I wanted to go to medical school.
My interest has always been in emergency medicine. I wanted to learn to treat anyone who came through the door at any time. Obviously, I had an interest in EMS and pre-hospital medicine, and I found out you could do a fellowship, or sub-specialty training, in EMS. I was able to jump at the opportunity.
Continued:
We have a unique training program at the University of Pittsburgh where I completed my residency and fellowship. That program allowed us to ride in ambulances around the Pittsburgh area, respond with the City of Pittsburgh EMS in a physician’s vehicle, and fly with a helicopter service. I had a phenomenal time doing these things, and they helped me realize this was my career choice. I was lucky enough that when I finally completed my training that they [STAT MedEvac] had a position opened for me to work in their helicopter program.
Explain what your duties entail:
Our staff includes me and three others who are part time. We are available 24/7, 365 to provide medical command, which is discussing each case with the flight crews in real time. Using telemedicine, most telephonic [by telephone or by radio], as well as the ability to use HIPPA compliant video, (which is basically a facetime) I can beam right to the crew and work through a case with them.
We also have a robust QI (Quality Improvement) process as we want to learn from every single one of those patient encounters. Completing 13,000 missions per year, we review every single one of them at multiple levels.
Each week, I compile cases that were particularly challenging. This includes reviewing their charts, what the crew wrote, and I can pull the data from any of the monitors. For instance, if the patient was intubated, I can review the video and I can watch the intubation process. We can use that information to reinforce better training. If there is something that the crew could have done better, then we have the opportunity to teach and lead by example. If there is something that STAT MedEvac can do better, in which the whole system can benefit from, then we incorporate that into our training.
Continued:
I spend about 30 days out of the year on the road training, so we go out and do high fidelity simulations with the crew, use skills training, and perform standard lectures. I get to fly and ride in our critical ground care truck as a caregiver, too.
In addition to that, I spend a lot of time doing regulatory work. We carry blood onto every aircraft, which makes us basically a satellite blood bank. It allows us to provide blood products to patients. We carry an I STAT, which is a portable analyzer, so it’s like having a lab at every base, since we regulated as a moderately complex lab.
We are accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Transport Services (CAMTS) a voluntary commitment to ensure that we are operating in the best interest of patients and safety procedures. CAMTS inspects transport agencies every three years, where they audit, and make sure agencies are up to industry standards. In addition to STAT MedEvac being a member of CAMTS, I am the vice chair of the organization.
Why is public safety important to you?
I am very fortunate to be a faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh as I get to practice as a physician in the emergency department, work at a practice as a medical educator, plus train medical students, residents and our flight crews. Those are all really cool jobs which contribute to me enjoying every aspect of my job.
Continued:
There is nothing I enjoy more than being out in the field. There’s a level of independence and confidence it gives you when you know that you can take care of anything and anywhere. That when the tones go off, you are going to be taking care of somebody who is super sick, out of an intensive care unit, and has exceeded the ability of that place to take care of the patient. Not to mention the very next encounter, you could be in a ditch on the side of the road trying to get someone out of a car who’s critically injured.
So, there’s a huge variability and that is one of things that make public safety appealing in general. Living in Pittsburgh, I am a huge Mr. Rogers fan and that’s the thing. He said, “When there are bad things happening, look for the helpers.” I always want to be a helper.
Do you have any advice for people pursuing in your field?
To work in EMS in general, you have to understand that it is a commitment to life-long learning. It’s an incredibly humbling job. Though it gives you that independence and confidence, you can’t know everything, and you can’t help every person. So, you must be prepared to always be learning and studying to try to make that next patient’s experience a little bit better and safe