Grab your coffee, partner. We need to talk.
It was one of those rare moments in EMS where the tones weren’t dropping, the ambulance was restocked, and I could actually sit down without immediately regretting it. I was scrolling through my phone, half expecting the usual Facebook arguments about whether you should transport a stubbed toe or how many IV attempts are “too many,” when I saw something that made me do a double take.
The National Registry of EMTs had a website hiccup.
To be clear, this wasn’t the end of the world. It wasn’t a ransomware attack or a catastrophic data breach. It was just a technical error that made it look like everyone’s certifications were inactive. But you’d have thought the sky was falling based on the reaction.
Within minutes—and I mean minutes—the EMS world collectively lost its mind. Screenshots were flooding social media. Conspiracy theories were flying like IV lines during a code. I saw comments like, “This is why NREMT is a joke!” and “Everyone’s going to have to retest!”—as if we were all about to get dragged back into a classroom to take our psychomotor exams again.
When a Website Glitch Becomes a Five-Alarm Fire
Look, I get the instinct to panic. You log in expecting to see “Active – Paramedic” next to your name, and instead, it’s blank. It feels like someone erased your entire professional identity in a single keystroke. That’s unsettling.
But what blew my mind wasn’t the glitch. It was the overreaction. We treated this technical hiccup like a full-scale disaster, with some providers demanding that heads roll at NREMT HQ. You’d think someone had announced that epinephrine was being replaced by essential oils.
What’s worse is that this wasn’t just a few new EMTs getting jittery. I saw seasoned medics—folks who’ve handled multi-casualty incidents without breaking a sweat—posting all-caps rants like teenagers whose favorite YouTuber just got canceled.
The Irony That Made Me Want to Bang My Head on the Rig Door
Here’s what gets me: we pride ourselves on being the calm, collected professionals who can walk into blood, chaos, and screaming family members and still function.
We’re the ones who can take a scene where everyone else is panicking and bring order. We’re trained to assess, prioritize, and act methodically.
And yet, a website error—a website error—had us spinning out like rookies.
It was like watching Superman get defeated by a jammed pickle jar.
A Scenario We’d Never Accept in the Field
Let me put it in terms we all understand.
Imagine you’re sitting in a quarterly chart review—the special kind of hell where your supervisor reads your reports out loud as if they were bedtime stories for auditors. Your boss pulls up a cardiac arrest case and says:
“It says here you administered 10 ml of Ketamine for pain, and the patient coded shortly after. Want to explain that?”
Now, anyone who’s been around knows Ketamine comes in a concentration of 500mg/10ml (or 50mg/ml), and unless you’re doing some truly wild dosing, you’re not giving all 10ml at once for analgesia. Maybe you meant 10mg and your fingers slipped. Maybe the decimal point went on vacation. Maybe you were on hour 22 of a 24-hour shift and your charting was about as sharp as a butter knife.
Would you expect your supervisor to assume the worst? To immediately accuse you of incompetence, demand your resignation, and spread the word across the county that you nearly killed someone?
Hell no. You’d want them to dig deeper, check your drug waste logs, ask your partner, and confirm the facts. You’d want the benefit of the doubt.
But when the NREMT site glitched, we didn’t give anyone that grace. We assumed the worst, instantly. We fired up the rumor machine and hit “post” like our lives depended on it.
What Really Happened?
While social media was on fire, some of us—the grumpy old-timers with enough gray hair to know better—took a different approach.
We waited.
We logged in, saw the same weirdness, and then… went on with our day. I checked the oil in the truck, poured another cup of coffee, and figured someone smarter than me would fix it.
Sure enough, the official explanation came out: a data path change during a routine update had caused a display error. No certifications were lost. No one needed to retest. All the panic was over nothing.
Crisis? What Crisis?
By the time the explanation hit, the damage was already done. Screenshots had been shared thousands of times. Rumors had spread faster than norovirus in a nursing home. Our collective meltdown wasn’t just unprofessional—it was a bad look for the entire profession.
And this got me thinking: if we handle minor technical issues like this, how do we look to the public when real crises happen? Are we modeling the calm, systematic thinking we’re supposed to be known for?
A Framework for Not Losing Your Damn Mind
In EMS, we have protocols. We have systems that prevent us from making rash, dangerous decisions. But when it comes to non-medical stress—policy changes, technical hiccups, personnel issues—we suddenly act like those systems don’t exist.
Over the years, I’ve built my own mental checklist for these moments, something I call WAIT:
W – What’s Actually Happening?
Before you light the internet on fire, pause. Is this real, or is it just a glitch?
On scene, you’d never start pushing drugs just because dispatch said “unresponsive.” You’d check a pulse. You’d actually look at the patient. Treating a website error like gospel truth? That’s the equivalent of giving Narcan to someone who’s just snoring.
A – Assess and Gather Information
This step is critical. Check official channels. Talk to colleagues. Look for patterns.
In EMS, you don’t call a STEMI off a hunch—you run the 12-lead, you take a history, you piece it all together. Why don’t we do the same when dealing with administrative or technical issues?
I – Implement Holding Patterns
Sometimes the right move is to wait. We even joke about it: “Don’t just do something—stand there.”
That’s what we should have done here. Instead of panic-posting, we could have waited for an official statement. The world wasn’t going to end in the next hour.
T – Take Appropriate Action
Once you know the facts, respond like a pro. If it’s a real problem, escalate it properly. If it’s not, take a breath and move on.
Expanding the Toolbox: Other Crisis Management Methods
WAIT works, but it’s not the only strategy we should have in our kit. Over my years in EMS—and in leadership—I’ve picked up other tools that are just as effective when chaos hits.
The OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act)
Developed by fighter pilot John Boyd, this framework is designed for high-speed, high-stakes situations. It’s perfect for EMS.
•Observe: What’s happening right now?
•Orient: What’s the context? What do I know from experience?
•Decide: Choose the best next step.
•Act: Do it—and then reassess.
We do this instinctively on calls. When the patient’s condition changes mid-transport, you don’t panic—you loop through OODA until you stabilize them. Imagine if we’d used that during the NREMT mess: observe the error, orient to the possibility of a technical glitch, decide to wait, act by… doing nothing rash. Crisis averted.
After Action Reviews (AARs)
The military uses AARs to learn from every mission—successes and failures alike. We should do the same. The key questions are:
•What was supposed to happen?
•What actually happened?
•Why was there a difference?
•What can we learn?
After this NREMT fiasco, an AAR might reveal that our real weakness isn’t technical glitches—it’s our tendency to panic before verifying facts.
Red Team Thinking
This method comes from the intelligence world. A “red team” challenges assumptions by asking tough, uncomfortable questions.
In EMS, this is the partner who asks, “What if this unresponsive patient isn’t an overdose? What if it’s hypoglycemia?”
Applied to this situation, a Red Team would have asked: “What if this isn’t the end of the world? What if it’s just a temporary display error?”
The Cynefin Framework
This tool helps categorize problems:
•Simple: Follow the protocol.
•Complicated: Needs expert analysis.
•Complex: Solutions emerge over time.
•Chaotic: Act immediately to stabilize.
The NREMT issue? It was “complicated,” but we treated it like “chaotic.” We went straight to Code 3 panic mode when all it required was a little patience.
Stress Inoculation
We already do this in EMS through scenario-based training. But we can extend it beyond clinical care. We can train ourselves to handle organizational stress—budget cuts, tech issues, policy changes—without freaking out.
Pre-Mortem Analysis
Before implementing a new change, ask: “If this goes wrong, how will it fail?” This isn’t about pessimism. It’s about foresight. If NREMT had asked this before the update, they might have caught the display bug—or at least been ready to communicate fast.
Antifragility
Nassim Taleb’s concept is simple: some systems get stronger from stress. This meltdown, embarrassing as it was, could make us better—if we learn from it and improve our collective composure.
The Debrief We Desperately Need
Now that the dust has settled, we need a hard look in the mirror.
•Why did we assume the worst?
•Why did misinformation spread so fast?
•How can we prevent this next time?
This isn’t about blame. It’s about growth. We owe it to ourselves—and to the profession—to respond better when the next curveball comes.
Coffee Shop Wisdom from a Tired Medic
Here’s the thing: we’re better than this.
We are the people who can intubate on a moving ambulance. We can manage cardiac arrests in cramped living rooms while family members scream in our ears. We can make life-or-death calls with almost no information.
We should be able to handle a website glitch.
Next time, let’s pause. Let’s think. Let’s remember that professionalism doesn’t just apply in the field—it applies online, too.
Now, who’s buying the next round of coffee? I have a feeling we’re going to need it.
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