Santa Clara EMT awarded ultimate prize

By Paolo Posadas

This past weekend eight members of Santa Clara Emergency Medical Services traveled to Baltimore, Maryland to attend a national conference. At the conference, senior Ana Papasin was awarded the highest prize for all collegiate emergency medical technicians, recognizing her as the top EMS provider nationwide.

Papasin said she was shocked to have been awarded the prize, but honored to have received it.

Deflecting attention to her fellow EMTs, she said, "I couldn't stop thinking about the people who helped make this happen. It wasn't an individual effort."

"I feel strongly that EMS is about the team and I don't really like individual awards, but anything to promote our program is great," the electrical engineer major added.

Chief Director of EMS Nick Johnson said Papasin has stood out for her individual contributions to the EMS program, which is why she deserved to be nominated for the award.

"She has made a huge contribution to our program over the last two years. She's really hardworking and takes on more than anyone I know," Johnson said.

Some of Papasin's contributions include alphanumeric pagers for EMTs on duty and the coming addition of Global Positioning System receivers on EMT golf carts.

As a part of her senior project, Papasin has worked to improve the ways in which EMS utilizes technology to improve communication. As a direct result of her efforts, with funding from the engineering alumni board, the EMS program now uses alphanumeric pagers to be dispatched to calls. Alphanumeric pagers are pagers that can display text as well as numerals.

Papasin said the alphanumeric pagers allow EMTs to be able to study and do their homework without having to listen to radio traffic all night. The alphanumeric pagers contain vital information for EMTs like location of the emergency, type of injury, number of patients involved and whether any special equipment is needed.

According to Papasin, the GPS receivers will allow the EMT golf carts to be tracked in real time from a Web site. The information will then be downloaded to figure out the quickest routes to emergencies and to document response times to calls. Papasin hopes to have the GPS system fully functional later this year.

Papasin started in the EMS program nearly three years ago. She said she got involved in it after her father was diagnosed with coronary artery disease and she wanted to be prepared just in case anything happened.

Papasin admitted she didn't think she would be in the program very long, but she got drawn in and has been involved ever since.

Michele Helms, who works out of the Cowell Health Center and is the medical advisor for the EMS program, relies on Papasin's presence, calling her an "instrumental" element of the program.

Helms said people that show compassion and empathy for others are hard to find, but Papasin is one of them.

û Contact Paolo Posadas at (408) 554-4852 or jposadas@scu.edu.