Back in 2004, Kerry Jenkins submitted a thesis at Louisiana State University, 2004 that contains a great deal of interesting information.  His creative thinking is a strong addition to the body of thought regarding responder training. He cites a great great many interesting quotes and information.  The reason it is worth studying is because he looks at our industry training issues without being bound by our pre-conceived notions.  His objective, explained in his own words is:

“Morey, et al. (2002) found that training of emergency personnel can reduce errors.  In this
study, emergency personnel such as doctors, nurses, and technicians were given formal
teamwork training.  Over one year, members of emergency departments participated in the study
by entering into a training course that focused on teamwork skills.  The results showed “that the
number of observed clinical errors was significantly reduced” within the departments given the
training (Morey et al., 2002, p. 9).  With the need for training so crucial, it is vital that the best
training methods and tools be used to help first responders retain and apply information.  In this 2
study, I experiment with the efficacy of one important tool used to train first responders:  the 
training video.”

Much has changed in the emergency responder training world over the years.  Used to be that I thought emergency response training videos were a good training tool.  Now I know it was because I hadn’t seen training videos of the quality produced by the Emergency Film Group.  They’ve changed the way I think about training videos.

Their founder, Gordon Massingham has kindly agreed to an interview.  I’m sending over my questions to him tomorrow morning on how his company started, what ideas they began with and how those changed over the years, and where they see the future for training videos.

Meantime, if you want to see one of the things about his company that impresses me, follow this link and take a look at the stellar personnel that as his Technical Committee.  Gordon sure knows the value of good technical input!