David Weber
David Joseph Weber, Esq., is an Associate Professor and Program Coordinator for Paramedic Technology at Northern Essex Community College, where he has the honor of guiding and educating peers. With over 35 years of experience as a paramedic, he currently serves as a per-diem paramedic with Massachusetts General Brigham Hospital’s Home Hospital service and previously worked as a flight paramedic with Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center’s Advanced Response Team. A licensed attorney in Massachusetts since 1998, David holds a Juris Doctorate from New England School of Law, with a focus on Health and Hospital Law, and a B.S. in Toxicology from Northeastern University. His extensive career includes critical care transport, hospital-based ALS intercepts, and frequent lectures on topics such as medical-legal issues, toxicology, and crew resource management. Passionate about the interplay of law and medicine, David brings a unique perspective to emergency services education and practice.
At the NMETC EMS Summit, David will be presenting “Bearing Witness”
So you just grabbed the mail and in the stack of political adverts is a summons.
This is now a “what could go wrong” or “hold my beer” moment, and you are the main character. You have been called to testify, to bear witness in the matter between two parties. The only good thing is that you are not a named party, just a witness. Let us explore how this kind of exchange of information is unlike firehouse banter or sharing of office cooler scuttlebutt. From the perspective of the actors within the legal system this exchange of information is deeply steeped in history and processes that are not what they appear to be looking in from the outside. We will explore what it means to be a witness in a legal proceeding and what you will experience. Then we will look at where some of the pitfalls and boobytraps lay. “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” I will introduce you to the courtroom dance of telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. This is a look at what it means to be a witness as an EMT/Paramedic.
