It’s a long way from where she thought she would be. “I was going to do photography. I grew up in Dayton and moved to California. I found out that (photographers) were a dime a dozen,” said Heather Koss.

Koss decided on a medical career after returning to the local area, where she observed care being given to her terminally ill sister and grandmother. “I saw the hospice nurses and they were amazing. So I started to ask a lot of questions.”

Koss enrolled in Sinclair Community College to become an Emergency Medical Technician-Paramedic and took a position with a local fire department. “I really loved that. It’s exciting. It’s different every day,” she said. “(But) the schedule is a little crazy and I have children so I wanted something that would still be in a health field.

“I love children so, of course, this is the most obvious place to work when you love children.”

She went to work as a nursing assistant and again enrolled at Sinclair — this time with the goal of becoming a Registered Nurse. “After I graduated I got a nursing position here and I have never left.”

Now she works in the Emergency Department at Children’s and serves as a trainer for EMS personnel. “I get to deal with all the outer fire departments — we have 154 fire departments that come to Children’s. I get the opportunity to go to these departments and train them on pediatrics,” she explained.

“I get to pick a topic that I see is really needed and I go out to the departments and give them the training.” Working in the ER helps her identify topics that she believes need to be taught. “I teach anything from respiratory to cardiac. Lately I have been doing a lot of seizure training. I have the chance to partner with the Epilepsy Foundation, and we started doing seizure training.” Koss said that seizures are one of the top 10 complaints that come up at Children’s ED.

Her 14 years at Children’s has been in the ER, which she says has some of the characteristics that drew her to becoming a paramedic. “It’s exciting. It’s different. You get a different patient continually. I never know what is going to come in the door. It could be something small or something big. Every day is different and that is the way it is in EMS — you never know what you are going to get.