ABSTRACT
Emergency call center operators, including Emergency Medical Dispatchers (EMDs), play a key role in providing frontline health services to the community. Over the phone, they engage with and assess individuals who are experiencing or witnessing medical crises, physical injuries, and psychiatric emergencies. EMDs must possess interpersonal communication skills of assertiveness, compassion, and de-escalation as they engage with highly emotive callers and contexts. They are also required to problem-solve and employ a triage process and scripted system to assess the severity of a person’s symptoms and situation while operating complex technology to communicate with operational crews to dispatch the most appropriate emergency and medical care. A high level of situational-operational awareness is required to manage multiple resource-responses simultaneously. EMDs are required to undertake their role with self-awareness, remaining calm and composed. These individuals are true first responders who enter their chosen vocation with passion and altruistic motives to serve others. It is essential that organizations recognize and acknowledge the stress that call-takers and dispatchers from all services experience. This, in itself, will assist to mitigate the negative impacts of potentially traumatic events and promote positive outcomes such as posttraumatic growth (PTG), resilience, and self-compassion. Research that shows that EMDs can experience PTG following potentially traumatic events is presented.
