Washington University’s Emergency Support Team (EST) earned three awards and placed first in the Stryker Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Skills Classic at the National Collegiate Emergency Medical Services Foundation (NCEMSF) conference. Over 100 universities across the country sent representatives from their emergency response teams to attend the conference in Baltimore, Maryland, Feb 23-25.

The three awards that EST earned at the conference were in recognition of its preparedness and capabilities in the event of an on-campus emergency. 

One title it received was the Striving for Excellence award, which recognized successful collegiate emergency response organizations that newer organizations can look up to and use as role models. The other two were the Heart Safe Campus and EMS Campus awards, which recognized EST’s ability to respond quickly and effectively in the event of a cardiac emergency or general mass casualties, respectively. 

The EST team said it hopes that this kind of recognition inspires more trust between the WashU community and their organization.

“I think there’s a lot of misconceptions about what EST does, about our training and licensing,” EST President and WashU senior Arden Pedraja said. “If anything, I hope these awards on paper and our first-place status will show the campus and community that we are an organization that is constantly striving to be better, and has been rewarded for that at the highest level of evaluation for organizations such as ours.”

Four of the eight EST members who attended the conference competed in the Skills Classic, a competition that included teams from 44 universities. In this competition, professional paramedics and emergency medical technicians (EMTs) evaluated teams for their patient care, teamwork, and problem solving abilities. WashU’s team included Crew Chief Solana Cariello, Deputy Crew Chief Elijah Darden, Doubler Annelise Molavi, and Tech Jennifer Ton. 

According to Cariello, the decision to even enter a team into the Skills Classic was last minute. 

“We submitted a team thinking we didn’t really have a chance,” she said. “From what I’ve heard, other organizations will kind of prep for it, so we were nervous because we didn’t have time to do any of that. But I’m glad it worked out.”

The competition included a medical scenario and a trauma scenario, and all participants were instructed to “run a call” as they otherwise would in a true emergency scenario.

“[The trauma scenario] was that someone had their hand in an industrial piece of machinery and then it got amputated, and it was crazy,” Cariello said. “The medical scenario was someone having an abnormal presentation of an allergic reaction.”

According to Pedraja, EST’s medical director had emphasized improving recognition time and treatment in the case of an anaphylaxis emergency. She said that while she believes that the team would have been prepared for these scenarios in any case, this likely gave it an edge in the competition. 

“I think that’s what allowed us to administer epinephrine early, which contributed to our win,” Pedraja said. 

Ton attributed the team’s success in the competition to its extensive general training, which made up for not knowing it would be competing more than a day in advance. 

“We had a really good solid foundation to lay back on, and that’s why even though we had less time to strategize, a lot of our training really pulled through,” Ton said. 

In addition to participating in the Skills Classic, all EST members who attended the conference had the opportunity to listen to professional paramedics and emergency responders speak about their work and get to know the people and protocols behind emergency services on other college campuses.

“I loved one presentation about EMS research that was led by UPenn’s agency medical director,” Guy Mermelstein, EST director of public relations, said. “It was very interesting because it complicated and extended things that we debated internally, particularly with airway management.” 

Darden said that a highlight for him was interacting with others in the field.

“It was really great to be able to interact with other community agencies,” he said. “It’s great to be able to connect and talk about the research we’re collaborating on, getting to share each other’s successes, and grow our relationships with other agencies.”

While Pedraja did not attend the conference this year, she was able to in 2023 and was excited to see that the team had improved since last year. 

“I am proud that we won all three awards that were focused on the more organizational aspects of the team and the way we run things,” she said. “It was really validating that it confirmed that the organization is doing things right, and winning the skills competition just reassured me that our basic EMT medical skills are also very much up to par.”

EST’s leadership team selected team members to attend the conference through an application process. According to Pedraja, its goal was to ensure that it brought members who represented a variety of perspectives through filling different roles on the EST team. 

Mermelstein was among the members chosen to attend the conference this year, and said it was impactful to gain exposure to the professional and collegiate community of emergency medicine. 

“It was truly life changing, not just from the perspective of a provider, but also just as someone who’s interested in medicine and the future of health,” he said.