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We had the ITD's removed from the car's months ago. We were involved in the study that docharris quoted and the doctors spoke to us often and we recieved feedback on individual cases. In general, the consensus was that while ROSC's increased, survival to discharge did not. Ergo, more money wasted on transports, ICU beds, etc without a meaningful result for patients returning home with a "quality of life".

firedoc! have to say I really miss the stories!

I've lurked this site for almost two years now, with maybe 1 or 2 posts tops. Being an EMT for a whopping 7 years (and a baby medic going on 3 months now), I honestly felt I had nothing to add. I see an enormous wealth of knowledge here, and it has both humbled and educated me. That being said, I couldn't help but chime in on this topic. I came through medic class with a 3.95 GPA, more clinical hours than almost every other student, and passed my National Registry at 73 questions. I say all that to get to this: I had absolutely NO confidence. I was constantly being fingered out in class by other students, ie "Ask *****, HE knows", or "Well, once we are out in the field, we'll just call ***** if we can't figure it out" You know what that did to me? It added an undue amount of needless pressure. They were just as capable of spending the time necessary to study as I was. That all changed about 2/3 of the way through clinical rotations. I had, in my opinion, the best preceptor one could ask for. Our first meeting, he reviewed my skillset, asked questions about my grades, class, experiences, etc. Then he sat me down and told me this : "Right now, you have the basics. Nothing more. All the books in the world aren't gonna help if all that knowledge leaks out your elbows. You have to use that knowledge, and APPLY it. This isn't a classroom, and I'm not gonna tell you you've 'done your best', or 'good try'. If I see you doing something wrong, I'm gonna call you on it (In professional fashion I should add), and you're gonna have to explain to me WHY it was wrong. YOU are the medic on this truck, and I'm the safety net. The only way you'll gain confidence is by DOING IT. So you miss an IV? Don't blame the patients rolling veins, or the lighting, or the type of catheter. You missed it because you didn't hold proper traction, or you used an incorrect angle, or whatever. I will do my best to answer, explain, instruct, and guide, but I will not coddle, baby, or make you 'feel good'." I thought this guy was a complete a$$. It's been 6 months now, and we're best friends. My point to the story? He made me WORK to gain my confidence. He was willing to let me fall flat on my face (making sure no harm came to the patient obviously), but would take the opportunity to educate me as to WHY I fell on my face. I wasn't held by the hand like so many I've seen. I was expected to take the leadership role from the onset, not slowly lead into it. It may seem like an odd approach to most, but I for one will be forever grateful for it.

I don't know North Carolina law on Police Monitor Radios (scanners) in POVs. Here in NY State, only LEOs in the line of duty, the Press Corps, and HAM radio operators, are authorized to have radios capable of receiving Police radio traffic actually in their POVs. There is an exception: a permit from the local LEO authority. When I worked in Nassau County, I would have needed a permit from the NYPD, the Nassau County PD, the Freeport (NY) PD, Rockville Centre (NY) PD, and the Lynbrook (NY) PD, at a cost of $25.00 for each agency. Yet none of them knew of the existance of such permits, when I asked to get applications for them. My friends who are HAMs, for this and other reasons, have been on my case for years to get an Amateur Radio Service license (some of them are even EMT City members). A mention that here in NYC, the Sheriff's and the Marshal's offices don't do law enforcement. They are for repo-ing cars and other property from deadbeats to return said properties to their original sellers, or auctioning off said items, usually from the steps of one of the 5 Borough Halls in NYC. Anybody notice that this guy's name was McVey? This in the same week they observed the anivirsary of the Kansas City Bombing of the Murrah Building. Coincidence?

Gee, I hope it works out for you Anthony. My company hands out suspensions like candy. It's one of the horrible things about this business, especially in a state with a "hired (and fired) at will" policy. One very cold and stormy night last winter we were staged out and received a call to return to station. You know how that goes. All the way there we're both wondering what the heck did we do? When we arrived our dispatcher told me to go home. And the next day I found out I was suspended until they called me back. My crime? We stopped for a cup of coffee at a convenience store and I passed a homeless guy sitting outside. He was cold, wet, and shivering. I got two cups of coffee and a cup of hot chocolate and going out the door I handed the hot chocolate to the homeless guy. I got back in the rig and we were pulling out when I said, "Wait a minute," And went into the back, grabbed a blanket (the ones we get from a hospital) and one of those waterproof yellow covers we use on gurney patients in the rain. And I gave them both to the homeless guy. But just as I was doing that another of our rigs pulled into the lot with a supervisor on board. And he reported me for giving away company equipment. I offered to pay for the waterproof blanket but suspending me was more important to them. I've never has such a love/hate relationship with a job in my life . . .

And there are many positives towards healthy, smart, safe sex. I think that does need to be explained, and taught just as well. I am just not a trusting person. And, unfortunately, I can say with all honesty, I do NOT know what is being taught in my children's schools. For one thing, they are not in HS as of yet, and go to two different schools. I know that they did go over puberty in my daughters 5th grade class, but nothing at all about sex. I cant rely and hope that my kids learn how to be well rounded and smart people via the public education system. It is the job of myself and my husband to give them the tools to become productive wonderful human being who make the right choices in life. And when they don't, learn from those mistakes they have to make. I just do not feel confident or comfortable leaving that in the hands of teachers who are already overwhelmed.

Some excellent posts so far! I agree with Dwayne and AK in their thinking.. I will add my two cents to it though. I know I have said this in other posts, but I will again. For too long, many parents have used the schools as their excuse for their own children not behaving as a well-adjusted member of society. My kid drinks/smokes/has sex, it must be the school's fault. Parents have a vital role in teaching their children about life, and in relinquishing that role to schools, they leave their child open to whatever actually sinks into that brain via osmosis. Kids are like sponges - they soak up what is going on around them - and if we don't teach them, someone else will, and it may not be what we or they want. One of the things that I see more and more of is that many parents no longer teach their children that there are rewards and consequences for actions. I suspect we all know of parents who defend their child to the last breath on something, even when they know that child was wrong "I know little Johnny vandalized 6 cars and smashed windows, but he is a good boy at home! It must have been hit little friends - he was just there." Open and honest discussion about sec, the rewards and consequences of it, shows our children that we expect them to consider their options, and the consequences of the options they choose. LOL Lisa - a friend of mine did that with his son not too long ago. He showed him some nasty STD pics, and had the talk. Now, he didn't just scare him with that, but he also discussed the positive side of sex, and the joys it brings in a relationship. This friend of mine is an excellent father, and his three boys are growing up to be excellent members of society, because of the effort he puts in as a parent. As for school cirriculum... if it is as bad as the material taught in the dark ages when I went to school... don't bother. Some of the girls my age might remember that really bad video we all had to watch on "Becoming a Woman - Your Menstrual Cycle." Yeah yeah, that was always the high point of my month - that video was obviously written by someone without a uterus. Give the kids the information in a factual manner, no flowery innuendos, and give them the knowledge they need.

Great, take away their condoms, we need more pregnant 14 year old's. I think the lack of pregnant teenagers in our rural school district, was because of a massive bowl of condoms in the nurses office. In rural areas, you often see more pregnant teens, just because there's nothing to keep bored teens busy. Only knew one that was pregnant in my senior year, but I knew eleven that had under-age DUI's. Now if they pressed for keeping better control of alcohol, that I would support. Screw religious feelings, control the goddamn population.

I get what you're saying here, and certainly agree, but am not sure how it applies to my post unless you believed me to be saying that those images were 'causing' kids to have sex. I don't believe that at all. But I do believe that it keeps sexuality in the main stream of societal consciousness. For example I had never given a thought to skydiving before it became a popular television topic. Since then I've thought of it a gazillion times. The images certainly didn't force me to go skydiving, but it did create a curiosity and keep that curiosity fresh in my mind. And you're right of course, that kids are going to be physically curious of each other even if raised in a vacuum, it's the curiosity to discover why the world seems to think it's such a big, evil, secretive, deal that I was meaning to point to. I like also your comment about partial information or cutsie names. There is a book called, From chocolate to morphine that was written in the same spirit as this discussion a long time ago. It began with the point of view that people were going to do mind altering drugs. It chose to examine each of the more popular drugs and explain the dangers, as well as the way to do them safely. The country was in an uproar!! But it's published still today and you know what? I grew up in the biker/drug culture and there is a mountain of stuff in there that I didn't know. Even things that I should have been taught in medic school but wasn't. Do we believe because they created this book that many more people began doing drugs? Or were the ones most prone to that lifestyle simply in less danger, and thus, less of a burden to society than they had been before? I'm going with the latter. I think that's what we need, is a "From anal sex to Uriphillia, an around the world guide to safe and entertaining ways to exchange bodily fluids" ('round the world, get it? 'roun....Oh, never mind.) Have a great day Yeti, thanks for your thoughts. Dwayne

I think that it simply illuminates that fact that politics has everything to do with obscure agendas and very little to do with creating a safe, healthy country for us to live in. I think that we should show Deep Throat to kids in about the 5th grade. There's not a girl on the planet that will have sex before she's 30 after watching it. (Ok, not really.) This attitude simply shows a blindness for real life. kids ARE having sex. Regardless what we tell them, they are drinking, getting stoned, exploring their sexuality. It's unavoidable with the constant exposure to sexuality in our popular media. And I personally think that it's a good thing. Sex is real life. It's vital to passionate, loving relationships. It's not evil, we're all doing it, and sometimes in ways we'd just as soon not talk about to others, yet we want to pretend that it's only good when 'we're' doing it, for others it's wrong and dirty for some reason. Perhaps we stop short? Maybe we should, along with teaching the use of contraceptives, teach oral sex techniques? (Heh, I could just hear Republican sphincters slamming shut all across the City.)I'm actually being serious here. Children are hardwired to begin to distance themselves from their parents at puberty. The most logical way to separate is to rebel against adult rules and thinking. Tell your kids that they can't have sex, and they'll use that to distance themselves from you. Tell them that they're not mature enough to have sex and they'll use sex to prove you wrong. As an act sex isn't good or bad. It can be made either by circumstances. Children need to learn how to mitigate those circumstances, to come to understand it as a vital part of life, though one that requires more thought and care than most other things. I loved the line, "Southworth is trying to censor what students learn, usurping the role of parents." I don't really get this. Teaching your children about sensuality, sexuality, and eroticism is the role of parents, both through instruction and example. If you've left that to the schools, yet find that they will no longer be doing your job, then I'm afraid you'll either be forced to step up to the plate, or send your kids out into the world unprepared. And we know the decision that the majority of parents are making by the abhorrent attitude on these subjects many young people are expressing. Too often they're expressing it with unwanted pregnancy, casual sex, sexual disease and sexual crime. Tell kids that they have options. That sex is awesome and amazing but that it comes with responsibilities. Explain those responsibilities, how to approach them responsibly and how to mitigate the possible consequences and most kids are going to listen. They truly aren't the ignorant little beasts that the adult media would lead one to believe. In many, if not most cases they are kind, intelligent, inspired young people that have been left adrift by past generations that have 'cared' for them by censoring necessary information from their upbringing, I vote a pretty much straight Republican ticket. But just watch, it won't be long before Mr. Republican, Christian, church going "Don't teach kids about condoms because it will make them have sex" will have pics of him being spanked on his bare ass by a transvestite wielding a Ken doll floating all over the internet. A byproduct of the "Sex is dirty so let's not talk about it" generation. Great article Matty. I hope it generates the discussion it deserves. Dwayne

I like that one thanks. On another note for a teaching tip that was given to me. Basic anatomy. Start the newbies with white t-shirts and magic markers, make them trace internal organs and palpate skeletal structure and landmarks. It's fun and teaches great anatomy skills and gets them past the touchy feally problems. Some of the shirts that we have received have been works of art. Later when asked to find specific landmarks they are more certain even with the differences of body shapes.

D: Optional with parental opt-out. I vaguely remember "sex ed" (mostly focused on puberty than actual sex) in 5th and 7th grades. I don't really remember what in terms of contraception was covered. I don't know what was covered in high school because students with impacted schedules (in my case, band with a full load of AP courses meant that I didn't have any extra space in my schedule) were allowed to test out of the health course requirement. Apparently that is no longer an option with students required to take the course either over summer or at night if they can't legitimately accommodate the health class into their school schedule. One of the big issues is that the course is only a semester long, so it leaves a hole in students schedules that might not otherwise be there.

Have them review a section they already know for the class no warning, spontaneous. Only step in if they bomb and then only to refocus them. Often you learn as much by teaching as learning.

Thanx Don. Feels good to be back.