Why our forgotten history of emergency medicine can teach us about how hard it is to change medical culture
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I stumbled across Kevin Hazzard’s book “American Sirens” after listening to the 99% Invisible podcast episode on the Freedom House Ambulance Service. It was an excellent stumble. Can you even imagine a time before ambulances, CPR, emergency medicine? When the assumption about emergencies was that patients had to be moved as fast as possible to the nearest hospital.. rather than today’s assumption that outcomes are much better if treatment starts as soon as possible, often before a patient is even loaded into a vehicle for transport? Consider what it took to change this, and other, assumptions about the legitimacy and practice of street medicine. And then imagine that we’ve written that whole effort out of history. In writing this story, Hazzard offers a powerful account of what it takes to change medical culture, the many simultaneous points of intervention, and the people. Especially the people.
Meanwhile, everyone should read this book, and the great thing is that it is completely readable! The book is informed by everything from interviews to archival research, and Hazzard traces the stories, experiences and lives of the people involved in bringing us something we largely take for granted today.
