Nancy Caroline, noted EMS text author, dies in Israel

By JOHN HULTGREN
Kentucky EMS Connection

UPPER GALILEE, ISRAEL — Nancy Caroline, M.D., 58, who wrote the first comprehensive paramedic textbook in the 1970s, died Dec. 12 of cancer at a hospice she founded in Upper Galilee, Israel.

In the 1970s Dr. Caroline, an ambulance service medical director in Pittsburgh, Pa., was asked to help standardize the paramedic curriculum. Her textbook, Emergency Care in the Streets, was released in 1979 and quickly became the standard for training emergency medical service personnel.

"Without Caroline's work and support, EMS would not have evolved into the profession it has become," said Dr. Bryan Bledsoe, who wrote several follow-on texts for paramedics.

To get it right, Dr. Caroline often rode in ambulances to see the challenges EMTs faced. 

"She wasn't just an academic," said A.J. Heightman, editor of the Journal of Emergency Medical Services. "She was comfortable on the street. You'd always see her riding with the crews."

In 1977, Dr. Caroline emigrated to Israel and became the medical director of Magen David Adom, Israel's equivalent of the Red Cross, which provides ambulance service across the entire country.

Dr. Caroline finished her paramedic text in Israel and continued to update it; it's in its fifth edition.

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