For a few months now I have been planning a series of post called “Healthcare Heroes”. My aim is to highlight people who are vital in the whole medical process but seem (to me at least) to not get the credit they deserve.

This series hopes to rectify that error and pay tribute to these unsung groups.

The first one has been on my mind for sometime now but it was reading this article that made it come to the fore. The article by Robert Evans and Jeff Hewitt is entitled “5 Terrible Things I Learned Working as a 911 Dispatcher” and you can read it here. So today I’d like to pay tribute to all those 911 dispatchers, ambulance call center operators, emergency service operators or EMS dispatchers. Different countries call these heroes and heroines different things!

Between you and me the article title is a bit sensationalist but the content is well worth reading as it is an interesting

take from an American perspective.

So what is it that these call handlers actually do? Wikipedia puts it rather well. “Dispatchers are communications personnel responsible for receiving and transmitting pure and reliable messages, tracking vehicles and equipment, and recording other important information. A number of organizations, including police and fire departments, emergency medical services, taxicab providers, trucking companies, railroads, and public utility companies, use dispatchers to relay information and coordinate their operations. Essentially, the dispatcher is the “conductor” of the force, and is responsible for the direction of all units within it”

So my question to you is “Are EMS dispatchers or ambulance call center operators underappreciated?”

I thought we could run a small poll to see what you think!

Finally it would be great if you could use the comment boxes below to share your experiences of calling emergency services. Good or bad! If you are yourself a dispatcher it would be great to hear from you as well. If you could share how you become a dispatcher that would be great.

Many thanks in advance!

Please note The EMS dispatcher is from
Image courtesy of imagerymajestic at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

and the 911 image is from
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net