KEMTA Instructor of the Year

Slade Griffiths, director of emergency medical services education, is the recipient of the 2005 Outstanding Instructor/Coordinator Award by the Kansas Emergency Medical Technicians Association. The award was presented April 9 during KEMTA’s annual convention in Great Bend. Griffiths, who heads Cowley’s Mobile Intensive Care Technician program at the college’s Winfield Center, has been at Cowley since Sept. 1, 1996. Lead MICT Instructor Cindy Branscum nominated Griffiths for the award. “It blew me away,” Griffiths said. “There were a ton of nominees. It’s quite an honor to be chosen. I’m very humbled and very pleased.”

The award is presented to a person whom the awards committee feels has demonstrated the best commitment to the highest ideals of EMS education in Kansas. Griffiths has developed Cowley’s program into one of the finest in the region. Each year, graduates of the program are placed in a variety of EMS-related occupations. Some go on to physician’s assistants school. Still others enter the EMS education field as instructors. “This award really belongs to all the EMS faculty in Winfield and the students who make me look good,” Griffiths said. “It is because of them that I received this honor.”

Branscum praised Griffiths for building Cowley’s program from the ground level. “He designed a paramedic program that escorts EMTs through one year of intense training to develop into competent MICTs,” Branscum said. “This program was one of the first in the state to offer training in a rural clinic where paramedic students work one-on-one with a physician to assess and treat patients.” Travis Morin, an MICT from the class of 2004, said his experience in the program was very positive. “It was truly an honor to be a part of the program,” Morin said. “I have won many awards as an athlete, but nothing I have accomplished prior to this has made me so proud. I can say with great pride that I was a Cowley student. The reason that statement carries so much weight is because of all the hard work and dedication Slade and Cindy have put in. It reflects on their work and the students they produce.” Lt. Dean Crowley, MICT with Sedgwick County EMS, said, “It’s a very positive experience. The student I worked with was a great representation of the caliber of student produced by Cowley College.”

Summer 2005