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Good evening everybody! Just wanted to introduce myself as I am new to emtcity. I live in Nanaimo British Columbia Canada and I have just recently received my Primary Care Paramedic license. Basically I can start IVs, give certain medications for a pt. experiencing SOB, drug overdose, Anaphylaxis response, chest pain, hypovolemia, and medications to a pt. experiencing a hypoglycemic emergency as well as we run a Not yet Diagnosed protocol which is a combination of checking for low blood sugar or if they have overdosed. I am not sure as to what level of care that would be considered down in the United States? I work for the British Columbia Ambulance service who currently employ about 3400 EMR, Primary Care Paramedics, Advance life support paramedics, ITT medics, and Critical Care Paramedics. I have been with the service now for just over 2 and half years and loving it! As stated above I just received my PCP license and now I am able to transfer out of my remote station that had about 200 calls per year to a station that I am starting in December that gets about 5000 calls a year! We run three ambulances out of the station one is a full time car, one back up car, and the other one is mainly for transfers from one hospital to another which round trip depending on which hospital we are transfering to is any where from 1 and half to one way to 3 hours one way. Any ways, I am looking forward to chatting with you all, and hopfully getting to learn some new things, as well as sharing some great stories! Take care and be safe out there everybody! Brian Strachan.

The company I work for recently upgraded to Bird Avian ventilators. The training received from the vendor was somewhat limited. Is there anyone out there that has any leads for training aids/sites specific to these ventilators? They look like they would be good ventilators but I'm somewhat fearful using with little knowledge. Thanks in advance for your help...

My name is Jerry Dinsmore and I am the CEO here at PERCOM. We generally do not post on forums or messages boards, but this topics begs for a statement from us. We feel that dialouge of this nature is good, but we would like to clear up some misconceptions and misinformation about our program. The reason that any student chooses any program varies greatly. Most students that choose PERCOM choose us because of the flexibility of the program compared to college based courses. Some students are unable to attend traditional courses due to their work schedule or other issues that will not allow them to enroll in a rigidly scheduled course. You also should take into account students in the rural/frontier areas of TX whose nearest "Community College" offering EMS education is literally 200 miles away. These students would be unable to receive EMS education without a hybrid program such as ours. We also have many students who are soldiers that deployed overseas. Our program allows these students to complete the didactic portion of the program while in theater and then attend skills training and clinical rotations when they return to the US. The course is not easy by any means. We have had physicians, PA's, RN's and former Paramedics take our courses. They have all commented that the educational process was one of the most challenging they had ever been through. We feel that in order for the learning process to occur in an online environment, the program must be extensive and thorough. We have weekly online student/teacher chat sessions to allow students to interact in real time with their instructors during the didactic portion of the course. The students are also encouraged to interact with the instructors via email with any question/issues they may have. Online education is not for every student. It takes a self motivated person to proceed through the material and learn in the virtual environment. However for those student who are motivated, it allows them to attend a program with more flexibility than traditional classes. Cheap is a relative term. Our pricing is structured to pay the expenses involved in educating the student with a minimal profit margin for the company. I would not call $4000+ cheap, however I would describe it as reasonable. Our website was designed to give an "Overview" of the program, not every detail of how we educate the student. This was done for 2 reasons. 1: We wanted to give enough information to the prospective student to peak their interest. We then want that prospective student to contact us so that we can discuss their unique situation (all students are different and unique). This allows us to help the student determine in our program is right for them. As I said earlier, online education is not for everyone and we want to ensure that student who enroll in PERCOM's programs understand fully how the program works and makes an informed decision before enrolling. 2: We did not want to let competing companies know how we do what we do. Business by nature is competitive and we are successful. We do not want the competition to know the in's and out's of our educational process and have them mimic it. We have had to deal with copyright infringement issues already and would rather not have to deal with issues of that nature again. Litigation, while successful on our part, takes away time from our main goal which is education. Dancing Monkeys and NREMT. Interesting. I have sooooo much I could say. I guess my question to you would be: What benchmark would you like us to use? How can we compare our graduates to graduates of other programs? If you can suggest a truly level benchmark that I can use to compare our graduates to I would be more than happy to run the numbers and see where we compare. We do have prerequisites listed on the website. We do not include A&P as one of them because we teach each student A&P before they are allowed to begin the Paramedic Curriculum. If a student can show proof of completing A&P at a college level then we waive that requirement. Clinicals are required in the course. We currently have 150+ clinical sites across the state of Texas. WE supervise the students in the clinical environment. We have minimum patient contacts and skills that must be preformed in the clinical environment. Hospital rotations include ER,OR,L&D,ICU,NICU and Cath Lab. EMS rotations include minimum calls that the student must be in the "Lead" role. All of these minimums must be met prior to graduation. This is the quote that truly drove me to respond to this thread. DwayneEMTP can you please show me where our site makes any of these claims. Post the url's or screenshots of our site claiming "less expensive" "study at home" "Fewer practice ?and clinical hours". I don't feel we have done any of this and I feel your depiction here is quite unfair. We take EMS education very seriously and our educators are top notch. Each of our lead instructors has been a Department Chair at a College EMS education program. We started this company to bring quality EMS education to student sans the rigidity of the college environment. After years of working in the College environment we saw so many students who were unable to meet their educational goals due to the intransigence of the College system. We felt that we would be able to offer quality EMS education in a more flexible way to allow more student to achieve these goals. We actually work cooperatively with college programs (Including Texas A&M) to add even more flexibility to the students choices. Our program goes through continuous review to ensure that our goals as educators are being met. I welcome any comments, questions and constructive criticism you or anyone else may have.

In August, we actually had a high speed crash, in a 25mph zone.. A guy hit a well casing, a dumpster, a pile of railroad ties, went through a garden, hit two signs and flattened an apple tree, while setting his GPS. Which he had mounted directly in front of him, on the dash. At his stature, I don't see how he could see around it. Lucky he wasn't killed. I was ticketed for having a dash light attached to my windshield, so you would figure a GPS would create a blindspot too? Today, I used that industrial Velcro, and attached the GPS to the underside of my dash. dimmed the screen so I can't see it, and used a double male audio cord to plug it into the iPod jack. That way it can tell me where to go, but I don't have to look at it. Velcro, duck tape, hot glue... You can fix anything. If only they had duck tape on the Titanic.

This is the most powerful PSA for road safety I have seen in years. Please pass it on to EVERYONE you care about this holiday season. Be sure to watch THE WHOLE THING! Why cant we have adds like this in the US?

Sweeet ! Unopposed free speech, my life is now complete and my work is done. I do suffer fools poorly, agreed am incapable of discussing important issues and everyone knows that, did they forget that I WAS the village idiots helper in a former life. Thanks paramedicmike: apparently my hidden messages worked out nicely and titrated and to positive effect as above quote indicate's. I do appreciate that someone was actually smart enough to pick that up, recognizing that a sudden change in tenor is very atypical of me, you must be a fan did you want my autograph ...only 10 bucks USD. YES I am akin to a Bull Mastiff when one desecrates MY most holy of days, I guess those that are not patriotic missed my entire post on Remembrance day 11/11/11. I thought I was pretty fucken clear, then I get a link to this argument for argument sake and just who is behind the verbal Diarrhea again yup the repeat offender quoting law and not one thing to do with medicine, no shock an awe here in the slightest. In my religion it is a sin not defend the honour of my ancestors. paramedicmike: Could you be a bit clearer, you disagreed that they "allowed" the boneheads to protest ? Please explain I am confused ? How would the Bobbys know what would be chanted over amplifying devices beforhand ? I sure wish I had your strength, in your story with protesters in front of you and did nothing about your right to free speech, I have another name for that and it is not tolerance. Question: Were the protesters in your event screaming "American Soldiers burn in hell," and held signs saying, "Islam will dominate" and, "Our dead are in paradise, your dead are in hell." Oddly still no hypothetical answer to my query as to what would have happened if this protest was held at the Arlington Cemetery on Remembrance Day <cough> gimme a break ... get real. "British soldiers burn in hell," and held signs saying, "Islam will dominate" and, "Our dead are in paradise, your dead are in hell." Yet you attempt to reprimand myself with directed comments and intended to shame me in some way because of F.O. YOU CLOWN but this was offensive to You ? Perhaps instead you should use your powers of moderation and BAN me from this site, I did break the rules visibly, well wait NO in fact paramedicmike YOU disclosed this. On another note and if you would be so kind: Here is a communication from a friend in the sandbox that monitors this site regularly, he has asked me share his views, because he is not permitted to comment directly while he is in-country. Please note well these are not my words I have been requested to forward them out of respect for my friend freedom of speech only minutes ago . cheers