Serving Those Who Serve Research into the mental health of first responders is a necessary step to improve the well-being of those who serve on the front lines. Paramedicine pioneer Dr. Ron Stewart and former volunteer firefighter Robin Campbell are leading the way
By Rachel Cooper (’89)
W
e know too well the toll that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can take on the welfare of first responders, their families and their communities. Today, solid research is being done to alleviate this, and young researchers such as Robin Campbell (’08, ’13) are contributing to that work. Campbell, who joined the Wolfville Fire Department as an Acadia undergraduate in Recreation Management and served as a volunteer firefighter for 10 years, is now a PhD candidate at Dalhousie University. Her thesis, called “Sound the Siren,” is on the mental health needs of volunteer firefighters and other first responders in Nova Scotia – a research journey she is sharing on her soundthesiren. ca website. Campbell is also an associate researcher with Firewell (firewell.ca), a health and wellness online community for Canadian firefighters. “Training as a firefighter took me down a path I didn’t expect,” Campbell says. “As I experienced different things myself as a firefighter and saw what other firefighters were dealing with regarding their health and wellness, I became interested in what is happening to firefighters, especially those who volunteer.” Yet, until 1993, Nova Scotia had no coordinated emergency health service or 911 phone system in place. In fact, about 50 per cent of the ambulances were provided by morticians. Something needed to change – and in 1993, it did.
First paramedic program The person behind that change was Dr. Ron Stewart (’63, ’65, DSc ’88). During the 1970s and 1980s, Stewart was the first medical director of a paramedic program in the United
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Ronald Stewart (’63, ’65, DSc ’88, with friend) promoting service dogs for mental health in first responders States, in Los Angeles. He and his team trained more than 1,800 paramedics for the streets of LA. He had a close relationship with the students, about 90 per cent of whom were from fire departments, and saw that many of them had serious psychological problems, reflected in high divorce rates, illness, and even suicidal ideation and attempts. By the 1980s, 80 per cent of the calls to the fire department were medical calls, yet most firefighters were unprepared for dealing with life and death situations and decisions. “Even more than that, some 40 per cent of those working in emergency services were Vietnam veterans, and those folks were scarred,” he says. “I knew something was going on, but it was pre-PTSD. We didn’t have a diagnosis.”
