?? Partnerships, Relationships, and Supporting Excellence in Bay Area Tactical Medicine ??

The Raytom Group has just wrapped up an incredible project in collaboration with the Bay Area Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI), supervised by Juan Daniels and Amy Ramirez of San Francisco's Department Emergency Managment. This training spanned across four Bay Area cities, was delivered over seven days, and resulted in training over 100 top-tier providers representing 48 agencies in NAEMT Tactical Emergency Casualty Care Provider and LEO Levels.

Taking inspiration from Lee Oughten's "Kindness Games," we're sharing our lessons learned, successes, and areas for improvement with other educational providers. Why? Because we don't see ourselves as competitors to other training groups, we want the best for providers- period. If sharing our experiences help other groups get in front of agencies to provide their brand of exceptional training than it makes both the training industry as a whole and the product being delivered to the end user better. The insight, we gained from this last week's massive training session and hearing about what is needed at the street level is information every training agency should be thinking about!

We hope our insights spark conversations, generate ideas, and drive best practices.

Lesson #1: Develop Partnerships! Not just business agreements and contracts, but true partnerships. UASI and our course hosts played a crucial role in logistical planning and understanding the needs of each session's end-users. Customizing the curriculum to match local protocols and SOPs wouldn't have been possible without these partnerships. Special Thanks to Amy Ramirez and Captain Juan Daniels for the tireless work supporting UASI end users and helping to put these courses together.

Lesson #2: Relationships! Early relationships with students are essential. With a diverse audience ranging from tactical medics to police chiefs and firefighters, it's crucial to create a "think tank" environment. We stimulated debates on what works, what doesn't, and why, enriching the learning experience for all. Power point and skills sessions are a requirement and important however providing the opportunity for these discussions in tactical medicine and how it's being deployed, we found that passionate students provided multiple examples where local protocols and procedures deviated from the national standards of NAEMT TECC. These discrepancies were rooted in various factors, including departmental capabilities, equipment limitations, and mismatches between scope and responsibility.

It's essential to note that all the students were positive and forthcoming in sharing this information. We had chiefs and other high-level officials in the room who actively took notes and expressed a desire to delve deeper for answers and ways to make tactical medical response across all public safety agencies better. In our humble opinion, this type of open dialogue is precisely what's needed in every tactical medicine course.

Lesson #3: Lastly, supporting our students means connecting them with resources beyond the course's expectations. At their request, we reached out to equipment companies to demo the newest bleeding control, trauma management, and patient extrication tools. Special thanks to https://www.medsled.com/military-vl-rescue/and [IT Clamp] https://www.medalliancegroup.com/product/itclamp-by-innovative-trauma/for answering the call!

One company that exemplified our commitment to delivering the best training was Jason Fetzer and Josh St Clair from Safeguard Medical Safeguard Medical - Global market leader of life-saving products. This dynamic team went above and beyond, gathering a truckload of equipment, sourcing items outside of their company, and bringing along two highly capable operators to support the training. What's remarkable is that they did all this without any expectation or pressure to make a purchase. Their sole aim was to showcase options to the operators and providers assembled in the room. And they did an incredible job – they probably came home with half their truck empty from giveaways!

In closing, what did we learn from this experience? Providing training as critically important as Tactical Emergency Casualty Care (TECC) should never be "off the shelf." It requires partners, stakeholders, favors, exceptional instructors, and engaged students to create impactful training that ingrains itself into the minds of providers, becoming second nature in the worst possible circumstances. These sessions weren't just a win for Raytom; they were a testament to the power of community, where individuals from multiple agencies recognized the value of this training and came together to make it extraordinary!

We're proud of the impact we've made, but our journey doesn't end here. Let's continue working together to elevate tactical medicine in the Bay Area and beyond.

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