By Erin Mei
If you ever meet stranger with light brown hair who smiles and greets you with a friendly “hello” on campus, it just may be Information Studies grad student Matthew Aronberg, who has one of the most important jobs here at LIU Post.
Matthew is captain of Post’s Emergency Medical Services. He has been working for the school EMS for the last four years and is a licensed EMT.
Being an EMT runs in the Aronberg family. His parents worked on ambulances and wanted Matthew to gain experience in the medical field, which led him to become an emergency medical technician. Luckily, the school offers full time students who are licensed EMTs a position on the EMS team and tuition remission for those who apply. Matthew started working for the school during his second year of his undergrad career as an Information Technology major in 2008. “Balancing my time was hard when I was an undergrad,” explained Matthew, “but now it’s not so bad since I am used to it.” His daily routine at the start of his shift involves checking the ambulance to make sure all supplies are in order and the equipment is functioning and going on calls. Matthew said that most of the calls that the school emergency services gets are medically related all over campus, with a few traumas every now and then. Due to the HIPPA Privacy Act, Matthew can not go into detail on what the emergencies entail.
When asked how he manages working the overnight shifts, he jokingly responded with his eyes closed and “lots of coffee.” But all joking aside, Matthew admitted that those late night calls are usually emergency calls. “Calls in the middle of the night are definitely the hardest,” Matthew said.
Matthew not only works for Post EMS, but he also works for other ambulatory agencies when school is not in session. “Working on campus is very different,” he said. “Patients at Post are my peers that I go to class and live with.” Even though his job is to make sure these students get to the hospital safely, he tries to make friends with his patients so the route to the hospital is more pleasant and less awkward for the patient. Matthew finds working for Post EMS is an “amazing opportunity” because it is a great way to network and meet new people. “People are always interested in what I do when they see me in uniform or when I’m driving the ambulance around campus,” Matthew explained. “Working off campus, you tend to deal with random people and you definitely get a larger amount of calls.”
Matthew is graduating in 2012 with a Master’s Degree in Information Studies. He explained that he would “probably recertify for another three years” to continue his E.M.T. career, but after those three years, chances are he “will be working on a career with computers.” Nancy Aronberg, Matthew’s mother, gushed: “I’m proud of Matthew and all that he’s accomplished with his EMT career, but I know that he would be happier behind a computer screen helping to educate other people on today’s technology.
For aspiring students who want to be a trained emergency medical technician, Matthew advises them to “study hard and pay attention to small details in class” and to volunteer with ambulatory agencies to get some experience before working for an agency or for the school.
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