Brandeis Emergency Medical Corps is undergoing various policy changes in the 2025-26 academic year. There has been confusion and speculation among the student body surrounding these changes. 

Managers of the clinical side of the BEMCo, Ellen Chiang ’26, Julia Kole ’26 and Hannah Bennet ’26 help lead the student-run emergency response service. Chiang serves as the Executive Director of BEMCo, overseeing events like Emergency Medical Technician classes and volunteering. Bennett is the Director of Operations, managing “the day to day aspect of BEMCo … making sure we have all … our medications and our medical supplies … I make sure the trucks are running and make sure any incidents that happen get reported to me.” 

As the longest-term member of BEMCo, Kole, who joined on her very first day at the University,  shared her perspective on some changes she has witnessed during her time with the organization. She emphasized the importance of the relationship between BEMCo and the Department of Public Safety. Despite having neighboring offices, BEMCo did not know any of the officers, Kole claimed. This year, they have been devoting more effort into building relationships with Public Safety officers. These relationships allow BEMCo to operate more smoothly and efficiently, stated Kole in a Sept. 25 interview. 

Kole discussed other changes to BEMCo including moving their office twice. BEMCo previously transitioned to a different space within Public Safety, and most recently at the start of this academic year, they relocated to their training room in Scheffres basement. “That was a big transition,” says Kole. Public Safety was responsible for the recent move. Kole shared that the student leaders were not a part of the conversation; they were simply informed that they needed to move.

Bennett elaborated on BEMCo’s move to the Scheffres Basement, commenting that it has been difficult to no longer be right next door to Public Safety. “We'll find ourselves … staying on scene longer, just so we can chat with the police officers there, because we don't get to … do that anymore the same way that we used to.” She shared that this was one of the most difficult aspects of the move: “We want to keep that … rapport and … bond with them.” Kole agreed that maintaining that relationship makes completing medical calls easier, since both teams are on scene at the same time. “It helps patients, if we can keep that [relationship with Public Safety] up.” 

Bennett added that their new location can make it difficult to find the correct building. She said that people keep on accidentally reporting to Gordon, which is connected to Scheffries. 

Kole explained that being farther away from Public Safety also extends each job, since they must travel to deliver the reports now.

Kole also described BEMCO’s transition from using pagers to a radio system. Prior to this year, BEMCo responders carried pagers, which vibrated to alert them of calls. Then, they would turn on their radios to find out more information. However, Public Safety updated their radio system over the summer to make it more compliant for large scale incidents. BEMCo has thus switched to using radios that always stay on instead of pagers. 

“We’ve been working with this new ‘sending us to calls via radio’ system,” Kole said, “which has its ups and downs, but we’re working on it and we have plan B and C — at least on our side — in case it doesn’t work, because that’s happened a couple times.” 

Kole pointed out a few potential issues with the new system, remarking that since the radios stay on 24/7 they run out of battery faster. BEMCo members are still figuring out the best system for staying on call during class. “We're getting these little clips that attach to the radios that vibrate when somebody speaks, so we can turn them all the way down and go back to that similar kind of discrete leaving class situation. But it's a work in progress,” said Kole. 

Chiang added that the new radio system will hopefully provide a faster response time because “There's that shorter lag from … turning off your pager to turning on the radio, waiting for it to … load on and everything. So I think that could be a potential advantage of the new system. But Julia sounds like we're working it out still, because it is still pretty new.” 

Bennett shed light on the conflict of BEMCo’s hierarchical structures and how this has interplayed with recent changes. She described the challenges of creating a collaborative work environment. “We do have a hierarchy, and that's just the way BEMCo works,” said Bennett, “It's not meant to … put anyone down, or … make people feel like they're beneath us.” Bennett added that new members are not given the same responsibility as those who have been in service longer, and this fact is a large part of the hierarchical nature of the organization. Bennett shared that it is difficult to manage 60 people and make sure that everyone feels like a unified team. “That's something we've really tried to do the last two years: make more of an effort to make sure that we don't feel like [non-supervisors are] beneath us all, like we're just one big happy family.”

BEMCo operates as an entirely student-run club, without an official advisor. They answer to the Chief of Police Matthew Rushton, Sergeant Emily Evans has been added to the equation this year. They also regularly meet with the director of the Golding Health Center Laura Begor, MD. 

“We have the club piece, we have these three sides, and nobody to do the umbrella. So, it's tricky when it comes to big decisions like this, because we just have to do what works.” She explained that the BEMCo vehicles are technically owned by Public Safety, and that they have some oversight. Kole added that since Public Safety has more substantial funding, they are able to assist BEMCo. “It's an interesting dynamic, but for the most part, they will decide things, and then we'll try to implement them, and now we have this liaison so we can go through her to be like, ‘Hey, this isn't working.’”

The BEMCo supervisors would like to see multiple potential reforms. Kole expressed a desire to have a point person, someone to advocate for the student leaders in higher-level meetings. “A lot of people don't quite understand how we run. It's not like they're maliciously trying to make things harder for us, but they just don't quite understand the ins and outs of how we operate. So I would love for the future BEMCo to have that, and we've been pushing for it a decent amount, so fingers crossed on that front.” 

Kole also expressed her wish for 911 calls on campus to not automatically be rerouted to the city of Waltham. This process only delays care and makes BEMCo’s work more difficult. Bennet added that it would be helpful to be able to directly communicate with the fire department, “there's already …  an EMS crew on scene, and then fire gets there, and then another EMS crew. So it's a weird little sandwich. And sometimes it can get very overwhelming and very crowded.” She elaborated that BEMCo often gets left out of the loop, and due to this lack of communication “sometimes messages can get distorted if it's going through three different people, just by the very nature of playing telephone.” BEMCo has been advocating for direct communication with Waltham Fire. 

Chiang shared that she would like to have an official protocol for Mass Casualty Incidents, especially with the new radio system, “It's something we kind of talked about with the liaison recently this year. But I think having an official protocol, sitting down and writing that with them and making sure that everyone's on the same page is really important.”

All three supervisors expressed an interest in educating the student body on what exactly BEMCo does and legitimizing their credibility as certified medical providers. BEMCo EMTs work 24-hour shifts, often multiple in a row. They are certified in the state of Massachusetts and many also work off-campus. They take full class loads and provide BEMCo services without being paid. Kole remarked, “It's a lot of work that we sign up for and we love doing. Don't get me wrong, but I do wish people knew some more of that.” She feels that students don’t understand exactly what BEMCo is, “there's a lot of confusion on … what kind of services … BEMCo [provides]. Are they 911, are they kind of like … the Boo Boo crew?” Kole stressed that she hopes the wider student body can gain a deeper understanding of what BEMCo does. Bennet stressed that each BEMCo provider must be an accredited EMT and that they constantly do skill reviews. She ended with a reminder that “we are real EMTs. People put in a lot of work and a lot of effort to go to get certified as an EMT and also to work on BEMCo.”