Our History
In 2005, a group of dedicated students decided that Stanford would benefit from a student-run EMS organization. However, this group also realized that a successful EMS organization would require a training program so that younger students could replace those that graduated. After months of negotiations and with the cooperation of the Department of Surgery and Department of Emergency Medicine, these students debuted a new EMT training program, Surgery 111/211. This class graduated 46 new EMT’s in its first year.
With a new training program for new student EMT’s in place, attention turned to the establishment of a student-run EMS program. During the 2006-2007 school year, another group of students, a mix of TA’s and graduates from the Surgery 111/211 class, began laying out plans for a student-run EMS service. Working with the Vaden Health Center, the Office of Student Activities, the Stanford Emergency Department and the Department of Public Safety, these students developed the foundation of StEMS. StEMS manned its first event on June 16, 2007, at the Graduation Picnic, and since that first event, StEMS has continued providing basic life support services at events around campus.
For its first events, StEMS had a total of 10 members, and was storing its equipment in Jamie Scalero’s office at Public Safety. Now StEMS has more than 25 members, three vehicles, and has worked over 13,000 person hours since its inception. We now receive medical direction and supervision from the Stanford Emergency Department and fiduciary and organizational supervision from the Department of Public Safety. As new members join our ranks, we hope to see StEMS grow to fit the prehospital medical needs of the Stanford community.
