Smart Firefighting Podcast

Episode 231: Addressing Divisiveness & Promoting Kindness in the Fire Service with Ron Kuley

Published

Guests: Ron Kuley

Topics: Health & Safety, Leadership

Episode notes

When was the last time you got screened for cancer or cardiovascular issues? Here's why sooner is better than later:

Hello Smart Firefighting Community!

Welcome to another episode of covering real world innovations via interviews with fire service and technology industry experts that empower YOU to develop your very own Smart Firefighting strategy!

In this episode:

The vital role of early detection in firefighter health

How United Diagnostics is leading the way in cancer and cardiovascular screening for first responders

How to promote collaboration and kindness in the fire service for a healthier future

Hear from Ron Kuley - a retired fire captain from Fairfax County Fire and Rescue.

Ron talks about the critical role of early detection in cancer and cardiovascular screening for first responders.

He highlights United Diagnostics' efforts in providing ultrasound diagnostic services and stresses the need for collaboration among fire chiefs, union presidents, and medical professionals to prioritize firefighter health.

Ron also voices concerns about divisiveness in the fire service and emphasizes the importance of kindness and empathy.

So click play now to hear what he has to share!

Head to www.smartfirefighting.com to discover how SFF accelerates innovation for emergency responders, to find out when our next event is, or review our curated resources!

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Chapters

  1. 0:00 Kevin's intro at FDIC 2024
  2. 0:53 Ron's 31 years with Fairfax County Fire and Rescue
  3. 1:50 What keeps Ron busy in retirement
  4. 2:39 United Diagnostics and early screening
  5. 5:41 220 screening spots filled in 48 hours
  6. 7:38 Why screening isn't mainstream yet
  7. 9:58 Cost and the easier path of doing nothing
  8. 11:07 Upcoming IAFF and IAFC events
  9. 12:13 What keeps Ron up at night
  10. 13:46 What Ron is excited about
  11. 15:06 Ending divisiveness: be nice
  12. 16:09 Wrap and outro

Questions answered in this episode

What is United Diagnostics and what does it do for firefighters?

Ron Kuley explains that United Diagnostics provides a nine body parts ultrasound scan that takes about 25 minutes. It is an early detection cancer and cardiovascular screening. A medical professional calls within 72 hours to review results. In Fairfax County, 43 cancers have been detected solely from the United Diagnostics ultrasound, and it has also caught significant cardiac issues like a dissecting aorta.

Hear it at 5:41

How much does the United Diagnostics screening cost?

Ron Kuley says the screening is in the $400 range. He notes it's not that expensive given what it can detect, and there are no false positives. When they find something, it is up to the person to follow up.

Hear it at 5:41

Why do some departments struggle to adopt early detection screenings?

Ron Kuley says money is a significant barrier. However, he also points out that sometimes city or county HR departments resist because they would rather wait until someone is diagnosed with late stage cancer than handle claims for early detection and treatment.

Hear it at 10:03

What does Ron Kuley say about divisiveness in the fire service?

He is concerned about divisiveness in firehouses and asks what firefighters are really arguing about at the kitchen table. He says people should get along and not let the minutia of the job bring morale down, quoting Alan Brunacini's idea to be nice because it's free.

Hear it at 12:28

Transcript

Machine transcript of the published audio. Names may be misspelled and some sections are missing.

Ep 231 transcript

Addressing Divisiveness & Promoting Kindness in the Fire Service with Ron Kuley

Speakers: Kevin Sofen, Ron Kuley

Source: Whisper medium.en machine transcription of the published Podbean audio (no original transcript found in Drive), lightly cleaned. Speakers were separated by voice clustering and then checked and assigned by hand at every speaker change. Gaps where the model returned no usable text are marked [inaudible m:ss].

[0:00] Kevin Sofen: Welcome to our Smart Firefighting podcast mini-series hosted at FDIC 2024. You will hear some stories from XPRIZE, AT&T FirstNet, and some other first responders. There are some great insights on wildfire technologies, connectivity during first responder operations, health and wellness, and much more. Enjoy the show. our third episode here of our little mini FDIC series alongside the one and only Ron Kuley. Ron, what's going on, man?

[0:32] Ron Kuley: Good to see you, good to see you. Thanks for having me.

[0:34] Kevin Sofen: Yes, how's your FDIC experience so far?

[0:37] Ron Kuley: It's good. You know, it's always great to see some old friends and people that are trying to really, you know, have an impact on the fire service. I love seeing the manufacturers and the nonprofits and folks that really care about what our folks are doing and are the first responders. So it's exciting to see everybody and see what new products are out there.

[0:53] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, so from a thousand foot view of the, for people that don't have the fortune of knowing Ron, the man, the myth, the legend. Who are you? And tell me a little bit about your background.

[1:01] Ron Kuley: Yeah, I'm a very fortunate person. I really am. I've had an occupation that has blessed me and my family beyond anything I could have ever imagined. I worked for Fairfax County Fire and Rescue. Started here in 1992. I just recently retired in January after 31 years.

[1:18] Kevin Sofen: Congrats, man.

[1:18] Ron Kuley: Thank you, thank you. And it was a blessed career for sure. Retired as a fire captain. I was always involved with the department and trying to make an impact, I believe. I had some great mentors in the fire service when I started at that time. I mean, it was all about making a difference. You know, I didn't mind speaking up as most people will tell you that I work with and advocating. So I became the union after just being on the executive board of the union since the early nineties became the union president. And then I stepped down just two years before I retired, just so I wanted to stay on the fire engine.

[1:50] Kevin Sofen: So you're off the fire engine, no longer with Fairfax. What's keeping you busy now?

[1:54] Ron Kuley: Yeah, I do. So I'm dabbling in a few things. I have some great friends in the fire service that are having an impact. So I'm fortunate to be able to pick and choose what I want to do. You know, thank God we have a great pension. So if I don't want to do anything, I don't have to do anything. But you know, the way I am, the way I'm wired, I always want to dabble in some stuff and stuff that's impactful. So I get to work with the IAFC, with President John Butler, who's also the Fairfax County Fire Chief, and work with him and CEO Rob Brown through a variety of projects. that we're having a great time and it's exactly what I wanted to do, right? Work with some really good people and have an impact. And then I do some consulting work. One of my clients is United Diagnostics. It's a great company. And then I work with other clients in the, I guess, in the PPE manufacturing world.

[2:39] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, so United Diagnostics, that's something that's been near and dear to a lot of first responder minds and hearts. But the idea, when I think of diagnostics, I think the whole idea of early detection is here different ways to leverage some of these new technologies. I was at the COG health and wellness symposium a couple of weeks ago in DC. And there was one tech in particular was from a company called Lucid where it was a shoving a little jelly bean thing down your throat and scraping some cells in your esophagus to look for esophageal cancer. And again, kind of be able to early detect. And I know there's a lot of ways to go about it from all the different cancer screening and cancer risk, but for someone that maybe doesn't know much about kind of the idea of early detection and how it's done and all the different cancers. And without, you know, scaring people, like just kind of give me a one-on-one on kind of early detection, you know, what's UDS doing and tell me a little bit more about the mission that you're solving.

[3:32] Ron Kuley: That's exactly what it is. It is a mission. I mean, it's an absolute mission. And Ray Lincoln, their CEO, he's driven by every time there's a detection, he wants to keep moving forward. And let's have an impact and work with this department. Let's go work with this association. And it's great working with somebody like that who absolutely cares about the firefighters. And that's indisputable. People will always tell you when they meet Ray Lank and he's great. I know I'm name dropping and I shouldn't be doing all that.

[3:58] Kevin Sofen: No, name drop all the way.

[3:59] Ron Kuley: He really is. He's impactful on my career, particularly when I was union president. So just a quick brief background, United Diagnostics and how they came about to be with Fairfax and then really involved in the fire service was they came to me a few years ago and said, hey, you need to bring this service to your members. And at that time, I was busy, right? This is pre-COVID, but as a union president representing 2,000 members, as well as the, you know, working on the fire engine of the fire captain, I got a large executive board, a lot of projects happening, fighting for budget, right? I was like, I don't have time to deal with this. And he kept saying, come over, come over, come over. There was the union president of a neighboring jurisdiction, Prince George's County, Andy Pantelos, who's now the IAFF 4th District DVP. great guy and said, Ron, come over, we're having it. Please come over and check out this diagnostic program. So I go over, see Andy and company, take a couple of guys with me. One of them is now gonna be the operations chief in Fairfax, thankfully. And we go through the program, it's about 25 minutes. It's a nine body parts ultrasound scan. So we do that and wow, that was a pretty good experience. But hey guys, I don't have time. I can't really bring this and start to create this. And I wasn't understanding of it all. Started doing, talked to folks, I appointed one of the cancer committee guys and said, hey, if you want to do it, do it. We had members, I said, it's gonna be impossible. People are not gonna sign up and pay $300 something to come to the union office for the scan. And boy, I wrote a flyer, I wrote a testimonial, and was I wrong. Within 48 hours- Attention, FDIC exhibits-

[5:38] Kevin Sofen: How about that? It's part of it, so, but yeah, keep going.

[5:41] Ron Kuley: So within 48 hours, we filled 220 spots. That first week, we had a member that was diagnosed with a cardiovascular disease, a dissecting aorta. He had open heart surgery within another week. Then we had three members detected with cancer. Wow, this is for real. Brought them back, another cancer, another significant cardiac. So we opened up the retirees, and Kevin in Fairfax County right now, We're dealing with 43, I believe, cancers detected solely from the United Diagnostics ultrasound, I think. So it's been very impactful, it's changed lives. So this is a health diagnostic screening. So we call it an early detection cancer and cardiovascular screening, right? It's a health diagnostics. What differentiates United Diagnostics from everybody else is that a medical professional is gonna call you. They're gonna read your diagnostic, they're gonna read your results and then call you and say, hey, you have a fatty liver or you have this going on or you have this going on. So that person gets a phone call within 72 hours or so. In my view, it's not that expensive. You're probably, when everything happening now, you're in a $400 change. And it's a proven method of early detection. There are no false positives. When they find something, well, Kevin, it's on you to go out and make sure you follow up on it.

[7:09] Kevin Sofen: Yeah. Well, first off, FDIC, how could you use the loudspeakers and disrupt the podcast that we have going on? Gosh.

[7:16] Ron Kuley: During an impactful time.

[7:17] Kevin Sofen: Yeah. No, I mean, don't worry. It's mainly picking up, but that's kind of where the man on the street interview is here. But I know from what I heard and what you were talking about, it's just the idea of simplifying it, normalizing it, not making it like something that takes a lot of time. And just something that, again, makes it also feel comfortable to be able to know that you're going to get real answers, real conversations from a doctor.

[7:38] Ron Kuley: Well, you know, I come from a large department, I have a large local, we have a lot of resources. We have the gold standard, the Cadillac, as far as occupational health screenings, I mean, we do all types of great stuff and resources that we have for our members. So this helps smaller departments come out and say, hey, we can't do a full comprehensive physical, but we're able to offer you a ultrasound diagnosis that is pretty significant. you can find some, you know, it's your nine body parts, basically from your neck down to your groin. So, and then the cardiac.

[8:11] Kevin Sofen: So what's preventing this from going full mainstream? You know, why isn't it something that's used and operated in-

[8:18] Ron Kuley: Fortunately with Ray Lankins, the way that guy works, I mean, he hustles, he's in Spokane, Washington, he's landing in Georgia first thing tomorrow morning. What stops some departments is money, right? With everything else, what helps with equipment and staffing and retention, recruitment, all that stuff. So money's a significant part of that. But when you bring the price down at $400 range, and for what you're able to detect, and what you're able to then offset from future medical issues is significant. What's interesting about this is, you know, I'm doing work with the IAFC. I worked a long time with the IAFF as well. I'm loyal to the IAFF. This is a great opportunity for a labor management alliance. Matter of fact, for me, there's no better example of a labor management alliance, then saying the fire chief and the union president are gonna work together to bring in early detection for their members. You wanna show you care? That's how you're gonna be able to do that. The money, they can be creative and figure that out. Whether it's insurance, whether it's a health trust, whether it's a grant. In Fairfax County, we got a grant, so now the entire department gets screened. I mean, that's why we're able to pick up a lot more. And it's non-invasive, right? You just lay down and put some gel all over you and you're done 30 minutes later. So that's the hurdle is the money part. But if people really wanna get it done, they can work that out as far as trying to find a funding. The interesting part about that is the fire chief wants it, the local president wants it, the firefighters want it. And then you have the county HR, the city HR, people say, whoa, wait a minute, we don't wanna do this. And why do you think that is?

[9:58] Kevin Sofen: Either it's a cost. but also just something that it's easier just to do nothing?

[10:03] Ron Kuley: It's easier to do nothing, because they'd rather you wait until you're diagnosed with stage four cancer, and die within three to four months, than get diagnosed with an early detection of cancer, and then have to treat you for a few more months, right, to resolve it. And that's literally what one person told me, he said, well, we can't handle the, it doesn't make too many claims.

[10:24] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, I mean, it's kind of messed up when you think about it, but at the same time, It's like, it's believable. But then again, yeah, here it's kind of ways working, you know, I'm looking at my shoulder and I see Sean DeCrain from IAFF and Jeff Dooling from IAFC and Dr. Burn Clark, you know, just a lot of different partners that are kind of banging the drum in different ways that are needed to kind of normalize and make this kind of a part of the conversation. But obviously people like you, groups like UDS are a big part of that. And I guess, as I said, you know, what's preventing it, I guess now sort of your thoughts and the next nine months, the rest of 2024, Like what's top of mind for you? You know, what are some events or kind of, you know, things that are on your radar or anything that people should be aware of?

[11:07] Ron Kuley: Sure, there's some significant events coming up and it's good seeing Sean here from the IAFF. The IAFF has been a great alliance with UDS as well as the IAFC. So President Ed Kelly, General President Ed Kelly, as well as President John Butler, Frank Lima, Sec Trej, they've all gone through this program and on first name basis with Ray, they really enjoy working with him in the company because they're out there, we're actually making an impact. So what's coming up, you have the IAFF General Convention coming up in August, that's gonna be in Boston. And then you have FRI right after that, and I think late August, that's gonna be in Dallas, Texas. So that's Fire Rescue International and IAFC affiliated program. And I think then we're gonna be at different association meetings, doing screenings and just having a talk to say, what do you need to make this happen? look, whether you want to pick UDS or somebody else. But we know that UDS is the proven, I mean, it's proven and experience matters in this case.

[12:03] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, that's great. And then I asked this to the last gentleman who I sat on the pod, Fred, who you said was your buddy from the-

[12:11] Ron Kuley: I was on the FirstNet advisory board.

[12:13] Kevin Sofen: FirstNet advisory board, yeah. But I had asked this question and I kind of would love to hear your thoughts on it. What's something that, you know, kind of flip side of, what's something that you're, what keeps you up at night? But on the flip side, what are you excited about in terms of, it could be in general, but just also what we're talking about.

[12:28] Ron Kuley: It could be a moving question. Someone like me, I'm sort of a softie on the inside, believe it or not, and what keeps me up at night is making sure my grandson has a great world ahead of him. It really does. I worry about the youth. I worry about the future of not just the United States, of our world, and everything that's happening all over the place is just be nice. Like, stop the fighting. There's no reason to bicker the way we do. And I say that in the realm of the fire service at the kitchen table, guys. What are we really truly bitching about? At the end of the day, what are we bitching about? We're crawling down the hallways together. Who cares if someone's watching Fox News or CNN? Get along and don't let the BS of the job, the minutia of the job really try to bring your morale down. Leave it up to the union president, leave it up to the fire chief and them to figure stuff out. Now, if you have ideas, bring it to them. What keeps me up at night is my grandson, the future of the world. What I'm concerned about is divisiveness that we're seeing again in the firehouses. And that's concerning because it's such a great profession. We're so blessed to be a part of it. We're blessed to have people like you looking out for us and really cheerleading this profession. You mentioned Jeff Doolin and Sean again and others that were here. It's just, it's awesome. It's all inspiring to be among these folks and now working alongside them. It's- It's fun, man.

[13:46] Kevin Sofen: It's pretty awesome. Now on the flip coin. What are you excited about?

[13:49] Ron Kuley: What's fire up about? That's great. excited about the two associations that I mentioned, the IAFC and the IAFF, you know, working strengthening their relationship, working closer together for the betterment of the of the fire service. I'm really excited to see some really great things happening between General President Kelly and then President John Butler. And what I'm excited about is stuff like this, right, is when you talk about early detection screening, that is, I am witnessing every week an email or a phone call resumes someone saying, hey, so-and-so just had their thyroid cancer and now they're getting detected. And now it's proven and now they're getting it worked on. So-and-so's had a kidney removed because of cancer. And I'm excited about keeping pushing early detection screenings, full health screenings moving forward. And I got a lot to do on myself. I mean, after I retired, I gained a little bit of weight. COVID didn't really help me out too much. So it's inspiring to see these folks get healthy, and it moves me to get healthier, as I want to get healthier for my grandson.

[14:47] Kevin Sofen: Yeah, that's right. Don't do it for yourself, do it for your family.

[14:49] Ron Kuley: Exactly.

[14:51] Kevin Sofen: And I guess kind of final thing is any sort of, I would love it, not quite a mic drop, but any sort of final thoughts of a quote that you live by, an idea, a challenge, any sort of maybe parting wisdoms or thoughts that Ron could pass with us today.

[15:06] Ron Kuley: There's a lot.

[15:08] Kevin Sofen: I welcome a few if you got them.

[15:09] Ron Kuley: No, there's a lot, but I'm gonna put everybody to sleep. at the end of the day, what is causing dissension and divisiveness? And you know, as Alan Brunisseni used to say in a great world of Alan Brunisseni, I'd have fortunate to be able to meet him a few times, it's be nice, it's free. Be nice. What's the heartache? So I think that's the easiest thing to do is just copy him and pilferage his quote by saying, be nice.

[15:35] Kevin Sofen: Well said, yeah, the simple things. Just smile, open the door, ask someone if they need help, Ask them if you could take them out for coffee and just ask how they're doing. And that's something that can go along in every single aspect of life, but particularly in fire industry as well.

[15:48] Ron Kuley: And look, I'm a poor sinner, right? I'm a hypocrite in many ways.

[15:52] Kevin Sofen: We're all living hypocrites.

[15:55] Ron Kuley: But I do try to follow that as Jeff Doolan smirking, looking at me. But yeah, it's been a great ride and I'm enjoying it. I'm blessed and privileged to be working alongside and still working in the fire service and get to work with you. So I appreciate this.

[16:09] Kevin Sofen: Ron, it's a pleasure and an honor, man. to continue to collaborate and just keep on the good work you're doing. I'm excited to see what's next. Thank you. Let's talk again soon. Looking forward to it. All right. Thank you so much for listening to the Smart Firefighting Podcast today. If you enjoyed what you heard and got any value, please drop us a rating, leave us a comment, or reach out to us on social media. Have a great day, and together we can advance the future of smart firefighting.