A1 - Basic EMS With Your Bare Hands

B1 - Until Dead Do We Part! Death by Suicide on the Front Lines 

C1 - Care of the Entrapped Patient

Jon Politis
You just arrived on the scene of an emergency, but your emergency medical kit and your "tools" are someplace else...now what? Assessment and emergency treatment with little but your head and hands is something of a lost art. This session will open your eyes to improvising and being able to provide excellent care when you don’t have all the gear you normally use. We will cover emergency moves, simple assessment tips and the art of improvisation with common items.

Wayne Zygowicz
As gate keepers of society, public safety personnel often feel they have nothing to offer suicidal individuals and are helpless in preventing death by suicide. Because of a lack of education and training most first responders feel they have nothing in their "bag of tricks" or medical kits that can make a difference. This presentation will examine the myths and facts of a topic most people don’t want to talk about, death by suicide. If you have ever responded to a suicide incident and felt helpless or under educated in the subject, you’ll want to make sure you don’t miss this compelling look at death by suicide and prevention strategies.

Jon Politis
Critically injured patients who are entrapped are some of the most difficult to care for: The ABC’s, temperature control, analgesia, sedation, and extrication. The essence of pre-hospital care is the treatment of patients in these circumstances, but many providers today understand very little about this type of "rescue" medicine. This presentation is an in-depth look at caring for patients who are entrapped and offers essentials of packaging and removal.

A2 - Advanced Invasive Skills

B2 - Don't Be a Pain in My Ambulance
Pain Management

C2 - When Life Slips Away: Assessing & Managing Shock

Lindi Holt
When seconds count, so does the ability of the provider to perform advanced lifesaving skills. With so little opportunities to practice these procedures and with training funds slowly dwindling, providers and educators must find inexpensive ways to practice these procedures on a routine basis. When seconds count, will you be ready?

Ed Racht
No one likes pain (alright, most people don’t like pain). One of the most common complaints in emergency care is one we often manage poorly. Pain is an invisible emergency. Effective management of pain involves an understanding of the art and science of dealing with this population. You will be surprised by the many "tricks" that can improve your patients perception of pain.

Mike Smith
Having a thorough understanding of shock is critical to improved patient outcomes. This hard-core clinical presentation reviews some of the fundamentals and pathophysiology of shock along with addressing some of the most common controversies in trauma management. Come and find out what the experts are currently advocating for the treatment of shock. This session will include advanced level information and treatment.

A3 - Trauma Management and Controlling Chaos

B3 - BLS & ALS Burn Care

C3 - Don't Let It Go To Your Head!

William Justice
This presentation is primarily for the "trauma junkie." A focus on high energy trauma and scene management, along with useful "pearls" to assist in choreographing a sometimes chaotic event. The presenter will graphically illustrate distracters that cause confusion during high energy events that cause critical injuries to be overlooked. It is an interactive presentation that the audience will relate to.

Ken Bouvier
Come along on this session as Ken discusses the different types of burns and how serious they can be. He will use unique slides to show minor, serious and life-threatening burns. Ken will also review a seven-year burn study and will discuss several other case studies as well. From treatment to transport, this session is the place to hear the latest for both BLS & ALS care for burns.

Lindi Holt
Don’t let the quality of patient care go to your head! Do you really know what’s going on in there? Study the anatomical and physiological processes of head injuries up close and personal! See, first hand, the structures involved in head injuries and why the body responds accordingly.

A4 - Itches, Wheezes, Hives & Sneeaes

B4 - To Pee Is To Be...

C4 - Dementia, Delirium: I Am So Confused!

Mike Smith
What itches, wheezes, has hives and sneezes? Come to this session to find out. If you didn’t already guess, this is a case-based presentation focused on patients with allergic reactions and anaphylaxis. Develop a better understanding of this unusual and possibly deadly physiologic event. With even Wisconsin’s First Responders now carrying epinephrine, this session is geared to all levels EMS as well as nurses.

Chris Ebright
When the kidneys fail to perform, your patient becomes sick with a variety of non-specific signs and symptoms. Whether from an acute situation or from a chronic problem, kidney failure may lead a patient to being dependent on dialysis. This presentation helps you to overcome the challenges these patients provide.

John Todaro
This presentation will discuss the general assessment and management of the confused patient with an emphasis on the differences between Dementia and Delirium. What types of other medical conditions causes confusion? This session is for all levels of EMS providers. Come and learn more about this debilitating disease.

A5 - EMS at Hazardous Materials Incidents

B5 - Fear Factor

C5 - Obesity: No Laughing Matter

Ken Bouvier
Do you know the basic roles of EMS at a hazardous materials incident? If not, this session is for you. Come to discuss and learn how to safely respond to a haz-mat incident, ICS, zones, safety, levels of protection, DOT guidebook, placards, labels, and shipping containers. Ken will top it all off with a review of several case studies. You’ll come away with a new perspective on EMS haz-mat, and have a lot of fun along the way.

William Justice
Disasters can take on many different forms including terrorist attacks, weather impacts, and severely reduced workforce (SRW) often referred to as pandemics. Business continuity is a "buzz" term in corporate America that focuses on any and all issues that could impact a city, company and yes…your department. The focus of Fear Factor is to do all the worrying or brain storming of disaster planning prior to the event, identify critical functions and pitfalls, develop response and recovery plans, exercise the plan and continually evaluate program continuity.

Chris Nollette
This lecture is a sobering look at the number one preventable medical problem in our country – obesity. This presentation is a mix of hard scientific data mixed with a psycho-social experiment of eating nothing but fast food for 30 days and its effects on the human body. A fascinating approach to how obesity continues to plague our society and how the children of the next generation will suffer the most from this preventable problem.

A6 - Precious Cargo

B6 - Documentation, Write It or It DID NOT Happen

C6 - From Warmth to Reality

Scott Bolleter
This presentation is designed to enhance your team’s systematic approach to pediatric emergencies. This multi-discipline program will improve your understanding, assessment, and treatment of the injured or ill child. Precious Cargo is an interactive lecture laced with the reality of actual cases studies. This program offers you an understanding of the critical difference these calls present and the focused necessity they demand.

Shane Dingus
Everyone has heard that statement, but how many practice this? Take a look at actual run reports that show the importance of complete as well as legible documentation. Insurance companies are constantly changing what is billable and when they pay, which makes documenting the most beneficial in regards to collecting.

Scott Bolleter
Some time ago we were each handed the essence of emergency medicine along with reasons for doing it. Tomorrow the scenes and faces might appear new but the reality will be as blood soaked and burning as the day before. Will tomorrow find more of us washed up and away from this work that, at least for a moment, made each of us whole? Scotty has grown tired of watching friends fall without solutions – so the time has come for change. From warmth to reality is a program founded in our EMS future with lessons learned and revisited in a world not like our own. The reason for attending is simply the truth we face and our need to evolve as a profession.

A7 - Does Someone Have to Die Before Things Change? Lessons from Aviation

B7 - The First Five Minutes

C7 - Creating Realistic Training Scenarios with Limited Staffing and Resources

Richard Gasaway
Does someone have to die before things will change? The bad news is: the answer is often yes. The good news is: the commercial aviation industry has spent millions of dollars understanding how and why things go wrong when passengers and crew members die in aviation accidents and they have learned their lessons well. We’ll examine how emergency services can benefit from the lessons learned after aviation accidents.

Richard Kline
This session will focus on providing attendees a logical approach (the CAN method) to tactical decision making as the first arriving officer on a working fire. The session will focus on the officer’s ability to recognize and report conditions, determine the appropriate actions for the first arriving company, and prioritizing additional needs related to ongoing tactics and additional resources.

Richard Gasaway
Under stress, you will revert to doing things you have learned in training. This is why it is so important to not only train repetitively, but also to design your training to create realistic scenarios that simulate actual emergency incidents. This program will focus on how to develop and conduct realistic training scenarios even if you have limited staffing and resources.