When less teaches more: What Mongolia's EMS reveals about Western systems

Connect with usCanadian paramedic Joe Acker watched a Mongolian ambulance doctor suture a head laceration on the roadside in the capital Ulaanbaatar, write a prescription and send the patient home. In Canada, the UK or Australia, that patient goes to hospital. No question.That moment has stayed with him - not because Mongolia got it wrong, but because they got something right that well-resourced Western systems are just starting to replicate.Joe Acker has spent 35 years at the senior executive level of EMS in Canada and Australia - Chief Executive of Ambulance Tasmania, Provincial Director of Clinical Practice for BC Emergency Health Services, Executive Director of EMS for Alberta Health Services. He is also a working critical care paramedic, registered in both countries. He knows what a high-income ambulance system looks like from every angle.He keeps coming back to Mongolia anyway. On his own time. In this conversation, Joe reflects on two years of training Ambulance 103 doctors and drivers in Ulaanbaatar - what has changed, what the training has produced, and where Mongolia goes from here. But the more searching questions run the other direction: what should the systems he came from be learning from a city doing 40 calls per ambulance per 24-hour shift with a fraction of the resources? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emsglobalfoundation.substack.comFor video podcasts visit: https://www.youtube.com/@ems-global2048/podcastsOur website: https://emsglobalfoundation.org/