Haverhill’s Stephanie Zuber is among the Lowell student EMT’s to win national recognition for their skills.
Competing against more than 30 collegiate teams from across North America, UMass Lowell EMS recently finished second in the Physio-Control Skills Classic at the annual conference of the National Collegiate EMS Foundation (NCEMSF) in Philadelphia.
It was the university’s best-ever finish at the competition, which tests students’ skills, teamwork and leadership in three simulated scenarios: medical and trauma response situations and team-building opportunities.
Led by UMass Lowell Director of Life Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Richard Wood, and Assistant Manager for EMS, Patrick Kiley, 10 students attended the three-day NCEMSF conference along with EMS organizations from more than 100 colleges and universities, including Zuber, a junior who is double-majoring in public health and biology who’s been a member of UMass Lowell EMS for two years.
In addition to testing their skills in the competition, students learned the latest in medical and trauma response, disaster preparedness and emergency management through expert panels, roundtable discussions and hands-on labs.
“The reason we did so well is that we just did the same thing we do every day with our patients,” said Zuber, “We went through the assessments, got the histories and did the interventions. We’re a pretty tight team, so everything flowed well.”
UMass Lowell also was among 12 schools recognized at the conference as an EMS Ready Campus. The designation is for collegiate EMS agencies that go beyond regular patient care activity and incorporate emergency-management education and preparedness activities.
Nearly 40 students participate in UMass Lowell EMS, which was founded as a student club in 1984 and has grown to include a cadet program for EMTs in training. It also provides supplemental emergency services for university events and offers CPR and first-aid training to hundreds of people each year.