EMS Week, celebrated in the 3rd week of May, honors the hundreds of thousands EMS practitioners serving communities across the USA. More
The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) was instrumental in establishing EMS Week when President Gerald Ford declared November 3 – 10, 1974 as the first “National Emergency Medical Services Week.” This annual observance continued for four more years and was then reinstituted by ACEP in 1982. Around this time the observance of EMS Week was moved to September. In 1992 EMS Week was again moved to be the 3rd week in May. The move was made to separate EMS Week from Fire Prevention week in October. The rationale for the move was the majority of fire and EMS services felt having the two events back to back hurt the effectiveness of each program so EMS Week was moved to May. (Source: http://www.acep.org/)