Vanderbilt LifeFlight has an education and clinical cooperative relationship with the student organization, Vanderbilt Emergency Medical Society (VEMS). VEMS was established with a primary mission to provide emergency medical education and clinical opportunities to student members of the Vanderbilt University community. In doing so, VEMS aims to bolster surrounding medical organizations by providing qualified, motivated, and recurrently-trained personnel from within Vanderbilt.
In an effort to help build relationships within the university community, and provide valuable clinical and educational opportunities to the students, Vanderbilt LifeFlight is working with the student group to provide volunteer opportunities within three of the six divisions of LifeFlight.
Vanderbilt Emergency Medical Society (VEMS) was founded in March 2007 by several Vanderbilt students with a passion for pre-hospital care. It partnered with LifeFlight in 2011 to become volunteers with LifeFlight.
Today, VEMS has expanded to approximately 50 EMT-IVs and First Responders spanning each undergraduate class in addition to several graduate students and alumni. All of these members share an excitement for learning about medicine and a commitment to serving the Nashville community through health care.
Students register and work as official hospital volunteers through the office of Volunteer Services, and are assigned to work within LifeFlight and the Adult Emergency Department. While volunteering with LifeFlight, students always work under the direction of a LifeFlight staff member in an observational and assistance manner.
If you are a current Vanderbilt University student interested in becoming involved with VEMS, please request to join the organization on Anchorlink. This will put you on our email list to receive updates on club activities and offers a contact option to reach out to the executive board. We can provide information on our annual Emergency Medical Responder course, applying for reciprocity of out-of-state licenses, and CPR certifications. Students are encouraged to contact the board as quickly as possible, as the state licensure process can be quite lengthy, and we are typically only able to bring one cohort of students in early fall of each year.