Just Plain Ruff

Holy crapola Batman, ERDoc do you know what you just did????????? You just agreed with Crotchity. Mark that down. August 31, 2011 at 1753:24 you agreed with Crotchity. Ok I have seen it all. I can go face my maker.

I can remember when I joined, I was working in a small ER in a small town working ER/EMS. Was the only medic on in the ER. We worked with one nurse, one medic(me) and one emt or a second medic. Dual medic trucks 95% of the time. . sometimes one or two others. That was the Now they work with 4 medics, 4 nurses, 4 emts and a few other staff at night. How things have changed.

I can see getting your hand slapped by the Pharmaceutical regulatory boards but if you gave the medication and it saved the life, you'd be hailed a hero. If you gave it and it did nothing, no hero worship. If you gave it and it killed the patient because they were allergic to the medication then no hero worship and a free trip to lock up ville or at least a huge judgement against you. Seriously, Squint, that's a conundrum that we face. We have no orders for it, we are working out of our comfort zone with minimal equipment and no medications in this scenario except for oxygen. You are expected to work to the level of the job not to your medical education/licensure level. You are manning a first aid (not als) station. You are severely limited in what you can do. So yeah, I'm calling 911 and then medical control. Now what's to say that I don't turn my back on the patient and a bystander gives them a puff or two??? How do you deal with that? And one more thing, oxygen is a drug according to most that I know. Who gives the order to administer the oxygen? If you are a simple first aider with no licensure other than a first aid card and you are carrying oxygen, isn't that breaking the rules as well? Ambulance crews can't even give oxygen if it's not in the protocols or doctor's orders can they? So to extrapolate, if you are working a first aid station and there are no protocols or directions but you are given a bottle of oxygen to use, aren't you breaking the RX rule?? Just some questions

just looked at when I became a member and it was June 28, 2005. That's 6 years. Seems like yesterday.

Hey all, does anyone remember the kiddo that we sent emails to via his caringbridge web page. He had cancer and we were sending emails and signing the guestbook. Dwayne is the one who started it, and I can't remember the kiddo's name. I'm curious as to how the little guy/girl is doing as I can't remember. Anyone? this was a long time ago, maybe 2 years or so ago?

Now why would you stay in Jersey? Actually I've been to Jersey, Patterson NJ. Never been scared to drive in a city away from home until I went to patterson. have you contacted New York Hospital in Queens ambulance for their ride along? I think they still operate one. Not sure, it's been about 8 years since I was there working at the hospital on their computer system.

Excellent argument of course. so are you saying that everything that is around you, everything that has been or will be just gets created out of nothing? How do you rectify that? Something had to have created it? Wouldn't that argue for the existence of some sort of creator? Something cannot just come out of nothing. What was the catalyst for the universe? What created the universe. I think I know what your answer to that would be though. I won't get into intelligent design or evolution as those are a whole different subject and we could debate that for hours and hours on end. I also feel 100% comfortable saying that God created everything so our arguments end at a stalemate here as well. And if you say that we control the masses, that is done by religion. what about the mass of people who do not believe in a God, how do you control them if you don't control them by religion? do you argue that if you use religion to control the masses that all the other world religions do the same? I do agree that religion should be at home or in church. I am not in support of religion infringing on my rights, I'm not in support of any religion that infringes on my rights. Do you also argue that if you were in a muslim country that is under Islamic or Sharia(sorry I don't completely know the difference) law that religion is used to control the masses there as well? would you be against that type of control as well? I don't believe in abortion, not because it's against God's law but because it's killing a baby. I also don't agree with the death penalty, not because God commands it but because kiling one person for killing another is not a good thing. I do believe in Taxes, not because God says give one tenth of your income but because it's the right thing to do though I loathe doing so. I also do believe that I should tithe 10% to the church because both God and myself believe that it's a good thing. So I don't believe in forcing religious beliefs on anyone, and you will agree that I have never done this here and I have never forced my beliefs on anyone out there. I have shared my beliefs but never forced them. I don't know what kind of Christian that makes me, but I'm satisfied with my walk. Should we take this to PM's? Or do you want to continue this here?

how bout this question what if a Gay/lesbian/trangendered person bitched about the same thing but said that straight people needed to go away. Finally, what if a black transgendered illegal alien posted that all straight white people should go back where they came from. So if this was his own facebook page, and he made those comments, and those comments got out to the workers which they have now, how do you think his working environment would be? And one final question. Say it is his personal facebook page and many of the chiefs are friends on his page. He let's loose this vitriole on his facebook page, everyone of his friends can see the nastiness, chiefs included. The chiefs do nothing about it because they say "what is said on his personal page is protected" haven't those chiefs given tacit approval to him to keep saying that stuff. Or could they pull him aside, let him know the comments are inappropriate and he needs to be careful. would that violate his first amendment rights?

Fair enough, I will continue. But weren't they considered lunatics in their society as well? I inherently believe that there is a heaven and there is a hell. Just because I cannot touch it or feel it or see it (until I get to either one when I die), I will not know if all that I've been led to believe is true or not. I choose to believe that they exist just as you choose to believe that they don't exist based on your rational thought processes. Can you honestly say that you are 100% certain that there isn't a heaven or a hell? Can you honestly say that with 100% certainty that millions of christians are wrong? I am woefully ignorant, soon to change, about other world religions. I got a book on my travels which was used as a textbook for a comparitive religion class at a major university in Baltimore. I have begun to read it but have only scratched the surface of chapter 1. I am hoping that this book will give me a broad overview of what the tenets and backgrounds of the major world religions are. And heck, it was a evaluation copy for a professor and it was free to me. Yay!

I'd love everyone to go the heaven or hell depending on their good works but that's not how it works according to the bible. Not my words. but this discussion isn't getting anywhere with just the two of us talking. Not a truly valid reason for ending discussion but it's reached it's end. A stalemate.

Not familiar with Pascal's wager. Will look it up. What is ironic is that only one of us is correct, or are both of us correct in our beliefs? Like I said, the only way each of us will know if we were correct is to die. hmmmmm I'm willing to wait until that happens. And I end this by saying, to each their own.

I wonder who prompted her memory?

And until each of us dies, we won't know if we were right or wrong will we. So we all go on with out lives the way we wish to live, to believe what we want and what we don't want. We all need that at least in my short 43 years I've learned that we need to hold on to certain things. Can our belief system be changed, yep, it can if the right and valid argument is presented but it's pretty hard to change a belief system if it clashes with what we know or think we know currently. See, this was a good exercise. Neither of us budged on our positions yet we had a good discussion.

Ok, fair question, but I'm sure that there have been people after the authors of the book that have been directly talked to by God but many if not all of them have been branded crazy. Let me ask you this, if I told you that Today God told me to do something such as move to Africa to be a missionary to a community. Or that God told me to spread the news that something was going to happen. What would your opinion of what I told you be? Would you brand me as a nut job or would you say "excellent, go and do it Mike. It sounds like God is really talking to you?" What would your reaction be to what I told you, that God talked to me directly? I do think that God can talk to you, but I don't think its a direct commandment that he will give. I think it's something more subtle. I also don't believe that the bible is a bunch of folk tales which is where you are showing your disdain of my faith. I don't show disdain for you thinking that you are the captain of your own ship and everything you have done was because of what you did and you did alone. I have never ridiculed your belief system yet you seem to ridicule mine at times.

hmmm, nice question, but I don't believe that's the case at all. I believe that he knows what you and I will do, he allows us freewill so in essence he allows you to do stupid stuff and yes if you do some things that are stupid, you will die. But I don't believe he outright tells you to do stupid stuff. A good valid question which I have no answer for. I have never been directly talked to by God, have you? I do believe that I have been pointed in one direction or the other but never told directly to do stupid stuff. How many people do you know who have said they have been directly told by GOD to do something? I'm sure they all were branded nut jobs though and sent to psychiatric facilities. I also think that religious leaders who say they have a direct line to God and talk to him one on one and he gives them these revelations but you can only know what those revelations are by purchasing some sort of miracle salve or spring water or what not. For a mere 1000.00 faith promise, you can have everlasting happiness and your money problems are over. Well they are over for you as you give your last 1000 dollars to the ministry of some fly by night schister!!! so no, I don't believe that God tells you directly to do stupid things.

Would we be having this conversation if the guy was black? would we be having this conversation if the guy had posted on his own facebook page? would we be having this discussion if he was writing to his private blog? Would we be having this discussion if he was actually ranting about his non-glbt co-workers about how big a bunch of Screw ups they were? Just some additional questions to sweeten the pot so to speak.

I know it's racist. But seriously, do you think that they would go after a company that has 77% black? Do you think that they would go after a black company for disparate hiring, NO FREAKIN WAY.

Like I said, if I blamed God for everything that went wrong, I'd be a very bitter person. I praise God because the things that go really right in my life have not been that completely frequent. I do see what you are saying, but in his masterplan, how do I know that what I'm doing wasn't in his plan. how do I know that my inaction, action, or delaying wasnt what he intended in the first place. What if there are no instructions, can't answer that because I don't think there are times when there are No instructions, just nothing shown to me as the way but going on the masterplan idea, that may be part of his plan, to remain silent yet he in the end knows what was to happen and what I did was exactly what he was expecting. So let me ask you this AK, you pointed out above the external factors that you can't control. Explain that. To me external factors that I cannot control could be God putting those external factors in your way. Just me thinking out loud.

I would also use someone elses inhaler, like let's say my own. I have one for odd times when I get wheezy. It's not been used often. I would only use it for specific circumstances, such as long time for ambulance to get there and the condition of the patient. If you are working in a first aid capacity you should have some idea of what local hospital is your medical control or find out from the ambulance service in the area who their medical control is. You could always call medical control and see if the doctor on duty will give you orders to give the inhaler. If I am working first aid and I have no ability to give meds I'll give medical control a call and ask them to allow me to use the inhaler. Giving them all the particualars as well as how far the ambulance is away. More than likely the doc will give the order to use the inhaler. Ruff

At one of the last services I worked for our protocol for cardioverting a conscious patient was to give Morphine/fentanyl and Versed and then cardiovert. We did not need orders to do it. We just had to document what we did. Seriously, if a patient needs it and can be medicated then why not standing protocol orders for it barring contraindications of course. I've only cardioverted a couple of times, only once did the patient deteriorate so quickly that I didn't pre-medicate first and that patient ended up dying on us.

Dwayne, It's not who's dick did they suck but how many did they suck. Just thinking out loud. I spent some time in a small company working on their computer system over the early part of the summer where I was one of only 15 or so white people employed at this company. they have 50 employees not counting the honky's. Everyone there is my supervisor. It's a manufacturing company so half the jobs are menially skilled labor such as turn the cap here and twist real tight then do it again. 5 of the employees are graduates of engineer colleges with 4 year degrees in engineering. 4 of the 5 of these guys/gals are black. and then there are 9 management/ 3 owners. I talked to some of them about racism and several said something to this effect. Loosely quoting "If those who are promoting the racism argument would just shut up and try to get along and listen to the other side, this country would get past the N word and racism faster than you can imagine" another said that those who promote the race card simply do not speak for the black man. they speak for themselves in promoting their agenda. They even went so far as to say that to further accuse every white of racism helps keep the black man down. They called Sharpton, jackson and many others hypocrites and one even called Sharpton a "fat fucker" This company was founded on the belief that no matter who you were, what color you were, that you could succeed in the company. They have such a disparity in numbers 50 blacks to 15 whites which is in part to blacks seem to be more willing to do the menial manufacturing than whites, according to one of the managers. The last hiring process they had, they hired 8 people. 5 black, 2 white and 1 hispanic. The applicant pool was over 500 people(70% Minority). They hired the top applicants. Pay isn't great, about 9.00 per hour for the bottom rung but up to 35.00 per hour for the engineers and the computer system guys. I was doing consulting for them so I was in a different wage tier. Let's talk about the management group. All Black. All started except the owners in the menial jobs area. Each of them have been with the company for over 10 years, total years of experience of the 9 managers is about 130years. Each of these black managers have proven themselves over and over as people who were smart and able to do the job. They weren't given a test for their jobs but I'm sure that they would ace the chicago fire test or any other test. I don't even think they had to suck anyone's tool contrary to what Dwayne posted (ha ha). The company is a really good company to work for. So is racism alive and well in this company?

I mis-spoke on your first paragraph, of course God does come into play but I'm a realist. I know that he's there. Only he has the masterplan. If he chooses that the rescue plan is successful then it will be. that's part of the masterplan that God has put in place for all of us. If the patient lives or dies, that's only partially because of me or the rescuers. Am I going to be upset with God if the rescue goes awry or south? Not really. I'll wonder why God allowed it to happen but in this field of work, we all know that people die and even though we want everyone to be saved and Rescue 911 proves that hours of CPR will of course save everyone and no-one dies, People die. Heck, Ak and I are eventually going to die. right Nothing we can do about that. Do I blame God when things don't go my way? NO not any more than I blame government when things don't go my way. Or blame my family or lifes circumstances. I will praise God when things do go my way but I don't blame God for the bad things. I will also praise myself if I did something really good or was successful. I know that praising god for the good things yet not blaming God for the bad things sounds strange but if I blamed God for all the bad things in this world, I'd be doing a lot of blaming. I'm not willing to go there as I think that would make me a very very unhappy and bitter person. Besides, I don't get to heaven for doing good works. I get there due to my relationship with Christ and that relationship alone. I don't remember the verse off hand but it plainly says that you don't get into heaven by works alone or something like that. I don't have a bible handy. But it all boils down to whether you believe in God or not. My opinion only, your's may vary. All this debate started with the simple words "by the grace of God". Good discussion, makes me think.

Actually, they asked my wife to do a amnio when she was 36 at the time. I mean we were high risk but her docs said that they do amnio's on all women over 35, or at least they recommend it. If there were birth defects, we weren't worried. There was nothing we were going to do to cure them at that stage right?

I agree with all you said. You and I have had some pretty spirited discussions on this particular topic, religion. I will address it from my perspective. Being religious really doesn't come in to play when it comes to rescue or working any type of call. I can tell you for myself that I would also never ever ever consider a swift water rescue on two points. I am deathly afraid of swift water. Any water running faster than a normal canoe creek is running and there is someone needing help, 911 here I come. I would of course throw a rope or something in to help them but to attempt to rescue the person with more extreme means is not in my purveyance. IF the water is running swift and I cannot see the bottom based on muddy water I'm not even going close to it. I have a family member who nearly drowned in a flash flood so that is where my fear comes from. I witnessed it. On a religious side, it has nothin to do with whether I would attempt a rescue or not. God or Allah or whatever God you believe in really won't come to your rescue if it's your time to go. I believe in God and I know others on this site believe in other gods or religions and some don't believe at all. I've been recalcitrant in the past in my opinions but I'm trying to see things from a different perspective. This reply is of course not a one religion is better than the other. You summed it up very well and my response mimics yours, my family is the most important thing in this life to me. God's of course the highest but tangibly, my family is on the same level. I know that some bible thumpers would disagree with me but to me, I believe that God is real and exists but I cannot touch him, cannot hold or hug him. I can only believe in the afterlife that I will hopefully be a part of in heaven. But for now, If I get home to my family at the end of the day, then all is right in the world. People die, several people have died during my writing this post. It's a fact of life and as long as I'm not one of the statistics or a darwin award recipient, and I go home to my family for another day, I'm happy. People die, we cannot keep that from happening. Unfortunately when people do stupid things, sometimes EMS providers or public safety workers die while helping them. Sad but true. What else you want to discuss AK?