Intro To Street Medics

 

What Is A Street Medic? by Atlanta Resistance Medics -- Street medics are a community of people who, for the last half-century, have provided medical support at protests, direct actions, uprisings, and natural disasters which are complicated by police or military targeting of the survivors. Becoming a member of the street medic community involves completing a 20-28 hour training (or bridge training for medical professionals), working at an action as the buddy of an experienced street medic, and maintaining relationships in the street medic community.

Street medics have varying levels of additional training ranging from “some first aid” through physicians – though most have the skills of first responders with some supplemental knowledge of herbalism. Street medics are expected to keep their skills current by pursuing continuing education and maintaining an involvement in action medical responses. Contemporary street medics often identify as anarchists, and even more as “radicals”, though being an anarchist or radical is not required to become a member of the community.

Street medics originated in the U.S. in 1963 during the African-American Civil Rights Movement. In 1963, the Medical Committee for Civil Rights formed as an integrated affinity group of medical professional and joined the March On Washington to demand civil rights for Black Americans. As the march wound down, MCCR members transitioned from being protesters into a standing group planning to play a medical observer role. Their name changed in 1964 to the Medical Committee for Human Rights to reflect the ideological shift that they were undergoing. Early in the summer of 1964, medical observers immediately found themselves in situations where they a duty to act. The need for first aid led to a nurse with Red Cross family background who help train other civil rights workers to administer first aid at protests... (http://www.atlantaresistancemedics.org/street-medic-history/)