A guide for the mentors who were never taught how — and did it anyway.
A practical guide for the people who do the mentoring. How to teach when no one taught you. How to give feedback without shutting someone down. How to be the person who makes the room safer — on purpose, not by accident.
Sam was three years in when Jeff caught him in the bay on a Tuesday morning. "New hire starting next week. I'm putting them with you." That was the entire conversation. No training. No preparation. No one asking if he was ready.
Most EMS mentors inherit the role the same way. A preceptor leaves. A senior person quits. Someone has to teach the new hire, and the person on the truck becomes responsible for turning a stranger into someone who stays. The Other Seat is written for the people who found themselves in that role and did the work anyway — the FTOs, preceptors, and senior providers who were never taught how to mentor and are figuring it out in real time.
It is the companion to The Ordinary Hours. Same profession. Same crew. The view from the other seat.
The person sitting next to you will forget most of what you teach them. They will remember how you made them feel. That's the whole job. Everything else is details.
From The Other Seat
A Note Before You Begin
Seventeen chapters across four parts. Each chapter closes with Field Notes — short reflection prompts and tools for the next shift.
The book runs through a set of composite characters — the mentor archetypes anyone who has worked in EMS will recognize. The names are invented. The behaviors are not.
The mentor who pulls up a chair. Sam's own mentor, and the reason he's still in the profession. Everything the book teaches is a reverse-engineering of what Maria did without being asked to.
The twelve-hour performance review. Clinically brilliant, technically correct, socially crushing. The mentor whose new hires stop asking questions by week two and leave by month four.
The coworker who does his job and calls it mentorship. Not a villain. Not unkind. Just never quite invested. The archetype most senior providers accidentally become when they're tired.
The FTO who assumed everyone was fine because no one said otherwise. The mentor who signs the paperwork and moves on. The one Sam almost became before he decided not to.
Field Training Officers and preceptors. Senior EMTs and paramedics who have been handed a new hire and told to "show them around." EMS educators looking for a bridge between the classroom and the truck. Anyone who has ever sat in the passenger seat with a rookie beside them and wondered whether they were doing this right.
And leaders who want to understand what mentorship actually looks like at the crew level — so they can build the systems that support it.
Infrastructure without culture is plumbing without water. You can make it possible for a paramedic to practice in any member state. You cannot make them want to stay at the station they walk into Monday morning. That is your job, and this book will show you how.
Donnie Woodyard Jr., MAML, NRP, WP-C
Executive Director, United States EMS Compact
Foreword, The Other Seat
Paperback and Kindle editions available on Amazon. Also available through bookstores and libraries via IngramSpark.
See what the book is about before you buy. The complete first chapter — free, no signup required.
Preceptor Conversation Starters — seventeen situations and sixty-plus prompts for the mentor in the moment. What to say.
The Mentor's Field Guide — the archetypes, the correction model, and the moves. What to think, before you meet your next mentee.
The Other Seat is the mentor's story. The Ordinary Hours is the leader's. Same profession. Same crew. A completely different view.
About The Ordinary Hours