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Recently I was part of a small fight with a patient's drunken relative who thought that we didn't treat his family member right - he attacked a colleague of the other ambulance, we others could release him an hold him down until police arrived on scene (needless to say the patient got a completely adequate treatment anyway). This wasn't the first occurence of violence almost out of nothing on scene to me, many more times I was able to verbally calm down such a situation. Including beaing insulterd and threatened ("I know your name I'll find you!"). Up to now, this never really made me anxious since they were too drunk to remember anything and/or from somewhere else out of my home town However, the last one gave me some thoughts, since the attacker is known for violence especially when drunk (including usage of knifes, already had some years in prison) and doesn't live far away from our village, probably often attending festivities (including alcohol) where we are on standby. Chances are high, that we meet him in future (actually I met him two days after the incident in a super market, but he couldn't see me) and even that he could track us down simply in the phone book by our names: we wear them (first letter of first name, full family name) on our jackets... Since I'm able to change our politics here, I now consider to get rid of this possible threat. Some of my thoughts: Names are useful in team work - we wear the same uniform in larger disaster teams or on larger event standby duty, where we don't necessary know the other medics from everyday work. It's helpful to address a collegue by name, so the nameplates sure help in getting work done. Usually we're calling us with our first names, even those colleagues we don't know. So for internal reference the first name on nameplate would be enough. However, if dealing with the public (which we're supposed to), I consider the "first name only" not a professional appearance in a serious business as ours. I have no experience with that, so I may be misleaded here. Now I'm stuck without a real solution and need opinions...please feel free to give me some. Thank you in advance! (actually in the situation above I removed my velcro nameplate while we hold the attacker down, so I might have a chance that he had not the time to read and remember my name, but this is not possible in every situation)

I don't care if this is from '08 Hands down, the BEST line ever written on this forum.

You're right, it isn't difficult. But it's also a high standard, even for the military. It's the longest run of any branch. We do pullups rather than pushups. And the CFT - completely not relevant to EMS. Maybe you could modify it to make it relevant, but it would be very extensive modification. Think about employees in most indepentent EMS services. How many can run 3 miles in 27:59 or less? How many can do 3 pullups (how many can even do 1???). How many can do 55 crunches in 2 minutes? My guess would be 1 in 10... or less. I COMPLETELY agree that some physical fitness standards should be maintained, some sort of fitness test. But let's make it RELEVANT to what we do. I'm gonna take some flack for mentioning these guys, but how about standards similar to fire departments (entry standards, not 20-years-on-the-job-getting-fat-eating-donuts standards). I would suggest that is much more relevant to EMS than a test designed for the Marine Corps. Again, it would need some modification. A 1 or 2 mile run, sure. Pushups and situps, sure. Some sort of lifting test, absolutely. Maybe a timed relay carrying a certain amount of equipment. Maybe someday, in the far distant future, we could hold EMS'ers to Marine Corps standards. But to be honest, I don't ever see it happening. In any case, given the current fitness levels I see around me, we need to start with baby steps.