Boy, does Greg Friese have some advice for you!

If you’ve ever been in need of useful advice, Greg Friese is at your service.

His site Everyday EMS Tips dispenses useful advice on a daily basis. Many of his tips — penned by him or his corral of guest authors (us included!) — apply only to the emergency medical service industry, while others such as “30 Personal Health Tips” can be helpful to just about anyone.

Friese doesn’t just dole out EMT wisdom, he also creates e-learning programs, writes for EMS1.com and podcasts about EMS educators. We’re just wondering how he carved out time in his crazy-busy schedule to answer some questions for us.

Can you tell me what one tip every EMS professional should heed?

No one else cares about your safety as much as you care about your safety. We all have an obligation to first look out for ourselves then our partner, bystanders and the patient or patients. Personal safety must include overall health and wellness (exercise, diet, no smoking, etc.), seatbelt use at all times and appropriate personal protective equipment.

You launched the website last March. What’s the response been like so far?

The response to EverydayEMSTips.com has been very positive. Readership has been steadily increasing, and I continue to get terrific comments and feedback from readers.

Do you think you’ll ever run out of tips?

My unofficial family motto is “Can I make a suggestion?” That motto has been passed down through centuries in the Friese family. Based on that heritage, I don’t think I will ever run out of tips.

Plus I find constant inspiration in my experiences, the experiences of others, the magazines and blogs I follow regularly and questions and comments from readers.

Tell us one EMS tool you never leave home without.

Patience for patients. I really enjoy the opportunity I have to connect with patients during their time of need. I strive to be patient, calm and understanding with all of my patients. Every encounter is a chance for me to continue learning and experiencing the thrills and agonies of pre-hospital medicine.

You conduct several emergency preparedness classes online. What are some pros and cons to e-learning versus the typical classroom setting?

My company, Emergency Preparedness Systems LLC, and our team of subject matter experts has designed and produced more than 200 hours of continuing education lessons for firefighters, EMTs, paramedics, 911 telecommunicators and other hospital personnel. Most of our content is produced as stand-alone asynchronous lessons.

Emergency response professionals enjoy this method of instruction because it is available when they are available, it honors their time knowledge and experience, and their learning is tracked and verifiable for recertification opportunities.

Regarding e-learning in general, there is a wide variability in the quality of content available to emergency response professionals. Selection of a learning platform, provider and content should be based on the goals and needs of the students. E-learning can achieve or exceed the same level of outcomes as classroom learning, but to do so, content needs to be informative, interactive and needs to expect the learner to participate in the process. Students that expect to passively receive training in any context — classroom or online — will not be able to maintain the knowledge and competencies required of an emergency response professional.

What’s next for you?

2010 is going to be a great year for me. The joint ventures I formed in 2009 to deliver new and innovative types of e-learning for emergency response professionals have gotten a great reception and are poised for continued growth in 2010.

EMSBootCamp.com is live online training for EMS professionals. Each session is a live webinar with opportunities for students to ask the subject matter experts questions throughout the session. PIOSocialMediaTraining.com delivers one-of-a-kind training for public information officers, incident command staff and other emergency responders about use of social media before, during and after major incidents. Finally, the EMSEduCast — the only podcast by and for EMS educators — recorded 42 episodes in our first year. We have already scheduled shows for well into the spring of 2010.

Of course, keep visiting EverydayEMSTips.com where new study tips, resources, job aids and e-books are added almost daily.