LaFayette Fire Chief co-authors research article with Auburn University
By KADIE TAYLOR
THE LAFAYETTE SUN
LAFAYETTE — LaFayette Fire Chief Jim Doody partnered with researchers from Auburn University to write an article titled, “Improving Interprofessional Competence and Knowledge in Nursing and Emergency Medical Services.” The article was published by the Journal of Nursing Education.
Doody said this article was a result of the development of a ride-along partnership between the University and the LaFayette Fire Department, where nursing students can ride-along with LaFayette EMS and see the work that it takes to get patients from their homes, or the space where they experience a medical emergency, to the hospital.
“We work with second and fourth semester critical care nursing students to give them a better understanding of EMS, from the time the phone call comes in to the time the patient gets in the ER,” he said. “Most nurses don’t deal with patients until they get to the ER, after the band aids are on, the bandages are in, the intubation tubes are in and IVs are started, but they missed the beginning part of that where [a family is] sitting in the day room, on the recliner studying or whatever, and then the tones drop. It takes a perspective that’s not really taught in school and gives them a better appreciation for the whole 911 system, since we are all basically one team.”
Additionally, Doody said riding along with EMS helps nurses have more understanding of patients and what they have gone through leading up to getting to the hospital.
“[This experience] makes [the nurses] a little bit more bedside manner trained when it comes to understanding Grandma when she shows up in your ER, because she lives home alone, and you were just in her house,” he said. “You know she doesn’t have family caring for her or understanding [what people are experiencing after] a car accident that’s so severe that we’re extricating a patient out of the vehicle and then flying them on a helicopter before landing on the hospital roof for the ICU. It just really gives them a true understanding, where they can take what they’ve learned in school in a simulated atmosphere and put it into real-world, practical application.”
Along with seeing patients in emergencies, Doody said he and the EMS at the LaFayette Fire Department help nurses practice the skills they are learning in class.
“Our clinical experience here since 2022 has been rated among the most positively rated sites, and consistently scored high across all semesters [we have done the ride-along partnership],” he said. “So that was a kudos to us, but it was a no-brainer for us to know that what we were trying to do was working and it was received well by the students… When we have downtime, the students will ask me, ‘Hey, Chief, we’ve got a big test tomorrow. Do you mind if we study? Or can we go over IVs, can we go over EKG interpretations?’ They were sticking my guys here with IVs, and that a little bit different [of an experience] than using the mannequin arm.”
The other co-authors for the article were Dr. Linda Gibson-Young, Dr. Andrew D. Frugé and B. Clay Young. Doody said the article explores the success of the ride-along program and found that the partnership enhanced students’ pre-hospital care knowledge and interpersonal competence.
“We submitted for consideration, and then we were accepted in October,” he said. “We kind of knew it was coming out, but actually see it in black and white, knowing that all our efforts and working with those interdisciplinary partnerships [worked] was a huge benefit, especially here in the South. Ride-along partnerships are not done as prominently [in the south] as they are in the Northern part of the U.S… It’s exciting to see [the article published], because it’s nice to see the work that we do get recognized, and to be able to get published in a medical journal like this, says a lot, because all the information in there has been vetted and the statistical data has been proven.”
Doody said when he first began collaborating with leadership in the Auburn University Nursing Department, one of the goals the university had was to help students see communities that differ from what they see in Auburn, or the cities they might have grown up in. Through the partnership, Doody said that goal has been achieved.
“Here is an example [of how the students’ life experiences differ from what they see in LaFayette], so the nursing students show up, and they’re pulling in Mercedes and BMWs,” he said. “And my guys are like, ‘These are students?’ So this takes the students out of that bubble of Auburn and brings them to a beautiful community, Chambers County, but it is night and day when you cross that county line. We want to get them out into the real world. Get them out into that rural community, where the health disparities are off the charts, and let them engage.”
