Everyone, Everyday. Relentlessly: Meet Alexander Alicea

As we update our brand name to UMass Memorial Health and launch a new brand campaign, it’s time to tell the world who we are, what we do and what we stand for as a health care system. Our relentless caregivers are the inspiration for the update of our new brand name and campaign. Find out more about these caregivers and why how it takes everyone, everyday working together relentlessly to care for our patients and each other. This week, we interviewed Paramedic Alexander Alicea, who shared his experience with us on everything from managing burnout to providing the best care to patients.

Our first opportunity to make a difference in the lives of our patients is often through Emergency Medical Services. “Most people who call us are typically not having a great day,” says Paramedic Alexander Alicea who does not take this responsibility lightly. “My personal philosophy of care is to treat patients as I would my own family.” At UMass Memorial Health, our patients are our neighbors, friends and fellow community members and caregivers like Alexander make sure they are treated like so.

For over the last 30 years, UMass Memorial Health’s EMS, Worcester EMS, has been providing successful service of the highest quality to the City of Worcester. A large part of that success is the close relationship our EMS teams have with our doctors, nurses and technicians. “With that good relationship comes the ability to understand the continuity of care,” Alexander says. “We don’t just bring a patient to the hospital, drop them off and leave and not think about them again.” This continued communication across all stages of a patient’s time in our hands allows us to constantly improve our system of care. It helps us treat each patient as an individual.

“It’s a privilege to be invited into a patient’s home, I think, and I try to respect that privilege as such,” Alexander says.  After discovering his calling in emergency medicine, Alexander started pursuing his dream of working for UMass Memorial Health’s EMS. It was our reputation in the community for excellence and operational precision that made us his first choice. A year and a half later, Alexander is still working as a successful paramedic with us, confident he made the right choice.

On Mondays when he’s not at work, you can find Alexander at the bowling alley with his friends from work who are in a league together. He noted, “I think it’s important to have a hobby that’s completely unrelated to the job for fighting off burnout.” Alexander spends much of his time off with his colleagues from UMass Memorial Health watching movies, working on motorcycles at their shared garage, or just hanging out. It’s caregiver friendships like these that make us a family and strengthen our ability to care for patients successfully as a team.