Peter Canning

I couldn't list all the EMS books I've enjoyed, but these are some of my favorites.

This summer I completed six sprint triathlons, which include a 1/4 or 1/2 mile swim, a 12 mile bike, and a 5K run. My goal is to complete an Olympic Triathlon (1 mile swim, 24 mile bike, and 10K run) next year.
- December 2007

I have started a blog called Capnography for Paramedics as a clearinghouse for information about a new technology that I believe will change the way we practice in the future.

-May 2006

I'm just returned from another Medical Mission in the Dominican. See link below:

-May 2006

I recently spent a week in Gulfport, Mississippi doing 911 calls as part of a company deployment to help out our Southern Mississippi Division. My account can be found at the link below.

-September 2005

I just returned from an eight day medical mission to the Dominican Republic where I was part of a 33- member surgical team providing care to people in the mountain town of San Jose de Las Matas. The trip was sponsored by Medical Ministry International. It was an amazing experience, and I would recommend any paramedic who gets a chance to do a trip like this to jump at it. I worked in both pre-op -- assessing patients and starting IVs -- and post op -- monitoring patients and giving meds for pain and nausea. I also served as one of the translators.

To read more about my trip and about Medical Ministry International, click the links below:

-May 2005

I am now posting excerpts (Street Watch) from my EMS Journal online at the link listed below.

This November I participated in National Novel Writing Month(NaNoWriMo). This is a project where people all over the world attempt to start, write and finish a 50,000 word novel during the 30 days of November. My novel is called Diamond in the Rough. Like my other books, it is set in Hartford with an EMS background. I based it on a 3,000 word short story I wrote a couple years ago. I finished it on November 27, coming in at 50,233 words. It was done start to finish -- typos, bad grammer, name changes, plot holes -- novel writing in the raw. Sometime in the future I may go back and read it, and decide whether there is enough good material to cut and paste, rewrite and polish or I may just leave it in the drawer. It was great fun to write.

- November 28, 2004.

I continue to work full-time as a paramedic in the Greater Hartford Area. For the last several years my primary assignment has been as a contract paramedic to Bloomfield Volunteer Ambulance(BVA). As an employee of American Medical Response, I work forty hours a week riding on the Bloomfield Ambulance in a Bloomfield uniform. I also routinely work overtime shifts each week on AMR ambulances in the city. While I miss having a full-time shift and regular partner in the city, I enjoy being in Bloomfield and working with the volunteers. We average four or five calls in routine 12 hour shift. When we're not doing calls, we can relax at the Bloomfield headquarters, read, write, watch TV or surf the internet. I don't think I could work the hours I do each week if I had to stay cramped in the ambulance all day. It beats you up after awhile.

In addition to my field work, I serve on the North Central EMS Regional Medical Advisory Committee. It is very satisfying to work with the physicians and EMS cordinators on the committee to upgrade the paramedic protocols, and then to go out on the street and actually get to use the new protocols. Several years ago I was involved in the successful effort to change the state law which had prevented paramedics from giving controlled substances to patients on standing orders. Now if a patient is actively seizing or in severe pain from a fracture, we can provide them relief without the often lengthy delay involved in contacting medical control. I am as proud of that effort as anything else I have done in EMS.

-September 2004

People often ask me if I am working on a third EMS non-fiction book, and for now the answer is no. After I finished the second book I stopped taking notes. While I continued to do interesting calls, the job did seem to lose some of its wonder. I don't mean to say I was burned out, just that I stopped seeing the job with fresh eyes. While I have begun taking notes again, I think it will be sometime before I have enough good material to do another non-fiction book. I don't want to just rehash old territory.

I have, however, been at work on an EMS novel (see Mortal Men under the Books section), which I am currently revising. I am very excited about the book and hope to have it finished within the next year. Fiction lets me write about the job from a perspective I can't really hit in non-fiction. I heard someone once describe the difference between fiction and nonfiction as follows. Ernest Hemingway reads a biography written about him and thinks to himself, "Ah, my secret is safe." Anna Karenia reads Tolstoy's novel about her life and bursts out crying, "How did he know? How did he know?"