Brandeis Magazine

By Hannah Van Sickle

Witnessing a medical emergency at Brandeis was a turning point for Anna Massefski ’17. When another student tripped and hit her head on concrete, the film studies and creative writing double-major froze.

“I didn’t know how to handle the situation,” Massefski says. “But when BEMCo, the student-run volunteer emergency medical services group, arrived, they calmed her down. They really made things better. I thought, ‘I want to know how to do that.’”

The following semester, she enrolled in a campus EMT class. In time, she became a licensed emergency medical technician and landed a job at a Boston-area ambulance service. She then earned a Master of Public Health from Tufts University School of Medicine with the goal of helping “not just one person at a time, but a bigger population — a system.”

Toward this end, Massefski, a 2024 BOLD Rising Star, has been working since 2022 for the Maine Bureau of Emergency Medical Services on an initiative she developed from the ground up. The EMS Explorer Program helps 16- to 24-year-olds learn more about EMS, connect with local services, and determine if the field might be a good fit for them.

“It's important that people understand from the start what the career entails so they can have a long, healthy, happy tenure,” Massefski says.

Tasked with oversight and program development, she encourages EMS personnel to get out into their respective communities and teach students directly. The local approach is key in Maine, which includes 14 communities accessible only by ferry or air taxi.

“Island EMS is very different from EMS in the heart of a city,” Massefski explains.

Her long-term hope is to grow the EMS Explorer Program across the state and, perhaps one day, see it implemented across the U.S.

“An EMT license is one of those skill sets that opens a lot of doors to different career options,” says Massefski, who applauds Brandeis for giving her the real-world experience she needed to flourish professionally.

She says that, as a woman in a male-dominated field, “it’s about leveraging the resources available and knowing your strengths to help you get the job done,” adding that, at 4’11”, she can lift a 200-pound patient into an ambulance. “This kind of work really helps you learn what you are capable of.”

Ultimately, Massefski says, “I believe people are their own doers and their own changemakers.”