Photo: Bryan Goodchild
UMass Chan Medical School and the Last Call Foundation are hosting a lecture on Friday, March 14, at UMass Chan on firefighter mental health, recognizing the stressors firefighters face that can contribute to addiction and mental health crises.
The lecture is part of a new education and research program funded through a $200,000 gift from the Last Call Foundation to UMass Chan. The endowment will support a medical student curriculum involving standardized patient experiences with firefighters, research on firefighter health, and a lecture series.
“Firefighters notoriously have higher risks of occupational cancers and higher risk of suicide and mental health disorders,” said Timothy Boardman, MD, assistant professor of emergency medicine. “Many of these firefighters need their primary care physicians to be able to recognize occupational pathologies. I think it makes sense for a medical school focused on primary care prevention to team up with Last Call Foundation, who’s really trying to increase awareness about firefighter health.”
The Last Call Foundation was founded by Kathy Crosby-Bell in honor of her son, fallen firefighter Michael Kennedy, who along with Fire Lieutenant Edward Walsh died battling the nine-alarm fire on March 26, 2014, in Boston’s Back Bay.
Jason Burns, executive director of the Last Call Foundation and a Fall River firefighter, said, “The program is going to give medical students, nurses, and doctors the opportunity to see what the firefighter community faces. Our risks are different from the general public. For firefighters, it will provide a chance to learn how to communicate with their caretakers and to advocate for themselves.”
Worcester Fire Department Assistant Chief Adam Roche said the work being done between Last Call Foundation and UMass Chan is important, and the department encourages mental and physical health education to support a productive and resilient workforce.
“Programs like this help raise awareness and provide people who treat firefighters with a thorough understanding of what first responders deal with on a regular basis and how they deal with the stressors that come with the job,” Roche said. “These programs also allow first responders to learn how to process these situations and recover from events so that they can come back to work healthy and have a healthy home life.”
The Last Call Foundation Lecture Series: Firefighter Mental Health is being hosted by the Division of Emergency Medical Services and Disaster Medicine in the Department of Emergency Medicine at UMass Chan. The lecture is open to all firefighters, first responders, and medical students and professionals. It takes place on Friday, March 14, from 3-5 p.m. in the Albert Sherman Center auditorium at UMass Chan.
Michael Hamrock, MD’95, a former firefighter and department physician for the Boston Fire Department, and now a primary care physician and addiction medicine specialist at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Boston; and retired Boston Fire Department Lieutenant William Ostiguy, will present the first lecture on how medical professionals can work best with firefighters and describe the barriers that firefighters and other first responders face in accessing mental health care and addiction services.
