Long Pause Media | FlightBridgeED
265 episodes listed below
Field medicine, argued out loud.
EMS 20/20 is a case-based EMS education show built around calls, patient scenarios, and the judgment calls that happen before the hospital. It moves quickly, jokes freely, and keeps circling back to what a responder might miss when the scene gets weird.
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EMS 20/20 is an EMS education show with the shape of a station-room argument and the usefulness of a focused case review. It runs on messy calls. A patient has poor saturations, chest pain, low blood pressure, and lung sounds that do not quite behave. A lake scenario turns into a question about sunscreen, respiratory failure, and what matters when the obvious answer feels too neat. A tongue trauma case becomes a transport dilemma, with blood, distance, online medical control, and hospital capability all fighting for attention at once. The show is comfortable sitting in that uncertainty. It lets the hosts guess, revise, joke, stall, and then get serious when the patient picture demands it. That looseness is part of the appeal. Episodes often open with banter about apps, hats, coffee, merch, conferences, or recent mistakes before settling into the medicine. The pace is quick. The jokes can be blunt. The clinical thinking is usually grounded in what a responder can actually do with the tools, time, and information available in the field. EMS 20/20 also has a strong peer-to-peer feel, especially when the conversation turns toward EMT school, continuing education, listener-submitted scenarios, or the gap between training language and real work. It does not polish EMS into something heroic and distant. It shows the job as a sequence of imperfect calls made by people trying to notice the right clue before the patient gets worse. That makes the show especially useful for learners who want to hear reasoning in motion. It is also a good fit for experienced clinicians who enjoy hearing another crew wrestle through the same gray areas they know from practice. The educational value is strongest when the hosts pause on a decision point: oxygen strategy, setup, destination choice, medical control, or when to stop trusting the first impression. The show can be ad-heavy at the front and back, and the route to the case is sometimes winding. Once it arrives, though, it has a rare mix of practical detail and lived-in EMS humor. EMS 20/20 feels less like a lecture and more like listening to competent medics talk through what went sideways, what almost got missed, and what should stick for the next call.
Made for: Best for paramedic students, paramedics, and EMS-curious listeners who want case-based learning with real-world messiness intact. It also fits experienced responders looking for a refresher that does not sound like a classroom module.
What sets it apart: EMS 20/20 stands out by pairing loose, rapid banter with detailed prehospital decision-making. The cases feel like problems being solved in real time, not lectures cleaned up after the fact.
EMS 20/20 is podcast hosted by two experienced Paramedics. Spencer Oliver and Christopher Pfingsten discuss real calls run by real responders and pull out the lessons you won't find in a text book. This podcast is aimed at Paramedic students, seasoned Paramedics looking to refresh, or any one interested in a deeper dive into pre-hospital health care.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
EMS 20/20 makes pre-hospital clinical judgment legible by stopping inside difficult calls and examining the choices available at each turn.
EMS 20/20 turns emergency calls into collaborative case reviews, with Spencer Oliver and Christopher Pfingsten pausing the action to test decisions against what responders knew at the time.
A bloody call becomes a clinical post-mortem, with enough banter to keep your pulse out of textbook mode.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A messy EMS scenario turns triage, uncertainty, and competing emergencies into the real case.
The episode turns a scenario drill into a pointed lesson in triage. Crew 4909 has to balance a critical care transport against a patient in the road who appears to have an inferior posterior STEMI and may also have a brain bleed.
A zoo emergency links respiratory assessment with the practical work of landing-zone coordination.
A zoo emergency turns patient assessment into scene management, as the team works through fast, shallow breathing, pallor, slight cyanosis, and a carotid pulse that is hard to find and weak when found.
A comic EMS case review about uncertainty, self-doubt, and giving a plausible concern room to be checked.
This single-episode review follows a rough EMS shift into the uneasy moment when a possible MI enters the call, then gets brushed aside. Hans feels foolish for raising it, but the real value is in how the hosts separate that sting from the practical question: was the concern…
A loose EMS teaching conversation tests AI through diet planning, then grounds the lesson in patient assessment.
A weekly diet plan turns into a sharp test of AI's practical value in this EMS 20/20 special edition. The episode opens with a broad tech sell-off and pressure around the AI market, then brings the question down to something ordinary: using ChatGPT for food planning while…
A murky presentation, careful scene work, and a practical EMS lesson.
This special-edition episode starts with banter and setup, then settles into a call that is genuinely hard to pin down at first. The sunscreen detail, fast breathing, hypotension, and absent lung sounds all point in the same direction, and the hosts work through it the way a…
A tongue wound, a transfer call, and shift-level banter.
This EMS 20/20 episode keeps its focus on a tongue wound and the transfer call wrapped around it. The talk feels like a real shift conversation: loose, funny in places, and always tied back to the patient, the call to online medical control, and the choice of where the patient…
A loose EMS conversation that turns a grim code into plain, practical insight.
David Horowitz talks through Medic, a Diary with a working-pro ease that fits the subject. The piece makes a clear case for why the book matters: it tracks his move from EMT to paramedic and stays close to the parts of the job school does not really prepare you for, from naked…
Loose EMS banter that turns into a practical lesson in judgment, warmth, and consent.
Rainn Wilson drops into an EMS call that opens with station banter and settles into a plainspoken problem: a restrained patient who is short of breath, sweaty, and bundled in the sweatshirt that may be the only thing keeping him warm.
Optometry, from the exam chair to the front desk.
Situational awareness talk for high-risk, high-stakes work.
Driving instructors compare notes from the passenger seat.
Irrigation training that counts savings in water and dollars.
EMS 20/20's 'Prime Time Medicine' opens with Chris Finkston and Spencer Oliver pitching a live-scenario format where listeners can apply at EMS 2020.com and potentially 'fail live in front of thousands.' A hospital-based crew from Euclid Medical Systems in Euler County gets a midnight PD assist for 'possible intoxication' and finds a gray, nonresponsive man near a car that later matches his VIN.
EMS 20/20 places Spencer in a randomized EMS scenario involving a 46-year-old zookeeper attacked by a tiger inside a zoo.
EMS 2020 hosts Chris Finxton and Spencer Oliver examine Hans Anderson’s first-month experience working with the veteran paramedic nicknamed Emperor P.
EMS 20/20’s “Special Edition: Bringing Back the Bagel” contrasts ChatGPT’s diet-plan errors with an improvised EMS scenario exercise.
This preview episode discusses an EMS scenario where a light rescue vehicle's compartment door was left open, highlighting operational challenges and safety implications in emergency services.
The hosts kick things off with their usual back-and-forth before moving into a special scenario from Master Your Medics scenario books.
A patient with a wound on the back of the tongue ends up at the center of the episode.
The host rants about recent changes to the Domino's app interface, particularly the confusing redesign of the coupon system and its impact on ordering pizza.
The hosts discuss a significant error they made on the show, specifically mispronouncing a word as 'Soka' instead of 'soccer', and acknowledge audience feedback about it.
Two paramedics discuss real out-of-hospital calls submitted by listeners to extract educational lessons.
Two paramedics discuss real emergency calls and extract lessons for paramedic students and professionals, while also promoting their continuing education platform.
Hosts discuss their appearance on another podcast about EMT school and demystifying the field of emergency medical services.
Two paramedics analyze real emergency medical scenarios to teach lessons for paramedic students and professionals.
Paramedics discuss real emergency calls and lessons for pre-hospital care.
David Horowitz joins the show to talk about Medic, a Diary.
Two paramedics discuss real emergency calls and extract lessons for paramedic students and professionals.
Paramedics Spencer and Chris introduce a special edition where they tackle challenging patient scenarios from a training book.
Two paramedics discuss real emergency calls and lessons for pre-hospital care, with a humorous intro about fast food.
Two paramedics introduce a special edition scenario based on a movie, warning the guest that the call differs from the film.
Two paramedics banter before diving into analysis of real emergency medical calls for educational purposes.
Chris and Spencer open with a joke about a perfectly normal episode.
Two paramedics discuss real emergency calls and extract practical lessons for medical professionals.
The host shares personal updates about traveling to Canada, promotes social media content and a video about Medic Grind's coffee, and engages in humorous banter with Spencer.
Paramedics discuss the effects of energy drinks on sleep after night shifts, sharing personal anecdotes about sleep deprivation and caffeine use.
Two paramedics discuss real emergency calls and share lessons for paramedic students and professionals.
Two paramedics discuss real emergency calls and extract lessons for paramedic students and professionals.
The host discusses the importance of audio quality in podcasting, focusing on common issues like microphone movement and desk thumping, with humorous suggestions for guests.
This special edition of EMS 2020 features hosts discussing paramedic training scenarios from Master Your Medics books while emphasizing that their protocols may differ from official guidelines.
Two paramedics discuss real emergency calls and extract practical lessons for pre-hospital care.
Two paramedics discuss real emergency calls and extract lessons for paramedic students and professionals.
Hosts discuss using listener-donated dice and a personal habit of forgetting water before recording, setting a casual tone for an episode likely about emergency medical calls.
The hosts discuss their experience at a conference, including a fun shear-cutting race, while promoting a sponsor.
This special edition episode of EMS 2020 uses Master Your Medics patient scenarios to discuss emergency medical protocols while emphasizing that listeners should follow their own agency's guidelines.
Hosts discuss being recognized and introduce a guest physician who will speak at an upcoming conference.
Two paramedics discuss real emergency calls and extract lessons for paramedic students and professionals.