Just Plain Ruff

I hope he's not a member here? Which leads me to a question. We post a lot of news stories and stories with some bad things that have happened. I wonder if any of those stories were about any of the members on this site? begs the question.

if you ask me, all the teletubbies were gay. Same with that other show with the round blobs, can't remember who they were but they are on in the morning on PBS I also think Bert and Ernie are gay And, Bob the builder, something is just plain wrong with him. He has this Wendy fauning all over him but he does nothing. Plus in a cartoon/claymation sort of way, she's pretty hot. And she has boobs

I think he's just a panty waist wussy. Funny thing is now everyone knows he's a panty waist wussy. Thanks to the internet and the media. I don't think I could show my face in the area again after that news story. I'd have to move out of state to somewhere that doesn't have google.

I've been thinking more and more on this topic. I'm not going to change my mind that those with HIV, Hep a-c and Active TB should not be on the ambulance. For those of you who have no problem letting someone like the above work, Do you want them taking care of you after you have been involved in a MVA or some type of illness strikes. If you don't have an issue with it then I guess you are a better person than I but I can tell you that if the person said to me I have hiv and I'm going to be starting an IV on you, you can bet your butt that I'm going to have issues. No matter how good that guy is, no matter that he has not missed an iv in the last 2000 attempts there is still a risk. I choose to mitigate that risk. I would also not work with any of the conditions above. If that makes me a bad person in your eyes so be it. But I will not be guilted into changing my mind. Wouldn't you hate to be the one infected and pass that infection on to another person in your care? Same goes with not washing your hands, not keeping clean and passing on some infection such as MRSA or god forbid VRSA. Or giving an elderly person pneumonia or the flu because you had to come to work that day for the overtime. Why don't those of you who feel it's ok to work with those types of conditions go to your infection control nurse or staff member and ask them this question. "If I had HIV, Hepatitis (a b or c), influenza, pneumonia, Active TB, or any number of other communicable diseases, would you allow me to continue working on the ambulance? And if you would allow it why?" I will do the same. If any of you can come back here and say your infection control person said that it was ok to do so then I'll change my tune but I'll bet my next paycheck that your infection control person will say NO FReakin way!

Come on, fainting when giving an injection. That's ludicrous. Hypnotism - come on. If the guy can't do injections then as a paramedic he would only be half a medic. Aren't IV's an important part of the job? Sounds like they gave him many chances to reform or fix the issue and he failed each time. let him go to work somewhere that they don't do injections. Sorry to be harsh but if you faint while doing injections or IV's then you don't qualify as a medic. Simple as that.

good post leener but paragraphs would be good too. getting there in one piece and unruffled is the end game in driving in an ambulance. If you don't get there safely there is a problem.

Have you ever personally seen a raped ape?

I disagree to a point with you Dwayne. We as healthcare professionals know better and most patients do not. If you are infectious you should not be working period. If it's a lifetime of infectious status then you should not be working. Many ofyour patients are immunocompromised enough as it is and adding our infection to their mix can be a deadly thing. Working when you have active TB is just criminal and negligent. If you pass an infection on to a patient it's no-one's fault but your own and if you knew you were infectious and worked anyway then it should be criminal. HIV - You give that to a patient and you are just as guilty as the above. I don't see where the issue is, we are healthcare providers and we know what diseases do. If you knowingly work while you have something then you are in the wrong plain and simple. I don't mean to sound simple but you infect someone then you are responsible. I for one do not want to have that on my head. Hepatitis a is just as bad - If you don't wash your hands on a regular basis then any infection you pass to a sick patient making them sicker is on your head. I have rarely gone to work sick. No matter how much money I was going to lose. If I'm sick I'm sick and I am rarely sick so I know that when I get sick I am really sick. I agree with you to a point Dwayne but not completely.

well my kids dad can beat up your kids dad. but seriously, boys will choose their dads over their moms for this type of thing everyday. Don't take it personal. And remember, construction heavy equipment is cool. the bigger the crane the bigger the excitement to little kids. Disney dads give the other dads bad names. When they host a blockbuster party for the kids birthday every other year or so then that's what the kid remembers, that dad had a huge party for me. Deep down you are really his hero but this is a way to show dad off especially when his friends do not know his dad so I bet he's talked him up a great deal before the hero day. keep doing what you are doing, it does make a difference. You might not see it now, but you will see it over the long run.

but the question is why are you carrying them down? do you not have field termination protocols?

I had a critical 6 year old that was suffering from anaphylaxis, unable to get an iv to save her life. gave her all the goodies, epi and the like and she coded anyway. We couldn't get the iv even after the epi so I looked at her neck and hey there you are. stuck an 18 ga. in that baby. Nurses freaked, doctor didn't like it but we got the IV. We were able to bring her around. Had we not have had the ej no telling how long it would have been before she bought the farm. The girl is now 11 years old and is on her soccer team, star player I might add. You get the iv where you can.

Good article found here. http://www.emsresponder.com/features/artic...=25&id=6567

she was actually a patient waiting in the ER there. You know their wait times are tantamount to what our wait times in the ER are here. I mean when you got to do your shopping, IV bag and full foley bag be damned. She just needed retail therapy - it was on her prescription

go to this website. It's a good one. http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/ncmain/ncdocs/fac...at_is_ptsd.html You do not have to see the accident happen you just have to have been there.

I'd hate to be that patient, not only do I have chest pain poss mi I've also got a CVA OY VEY

you coded a 3 year old who had brain matter on the ground, you drove her to the hospital with CPR in progress. You know that they worked her for a while at the hospital. You see this kids face in your dreams, in your waking times. you cry at the drop of the hat, have anxiety attacks and you can't sleep. yeah, I'd say if it's not PTSD then it's pretty damn close. but are you now saying you actually didn't take part in this situation but only heard about it? I'm confused?

Neesie, I think you are exhibiting signs of PTSD and that's a big issue now for you. Please get help either at your employer's EAP or on your own. You keep posting and I can almost guarantee that it's not going to go away on it's own. To be blunt -- You need help. Just buck it up, call someone in a professional role and get the help you need. If you continue to post here with all your feelings and do not take some of the best advice given to you and you negate our attempts to help. I have a co-worker who comes to me or advice all the time. I give good advice and she agree's with the advice each time I give it. Yet she does the opposite of what I counsel. I finally told her to not come to me for advice anymore since my advice is never taken. So you have good advice given. As a matter of fact, some of it has been excellent. If you ignore the advice that you ahve been given, if you ignore the counsel you have recieved then no-one here will be willing to help you in the future and that is not an outcome you want nor we want. Please let us know what you plan on doing. All of us who have responded to your posts have a genuine interest in helping you, giving you advice but if you ignore that advice then I for one will probably not provide advice to you in the future because you didn't listen to sound advice the first time. I'm sorry to sound so harsh but I've been down this road before, what with emt partners, my co-workers and the like. If you ask for advice and disregard that advice then I am very reluctant to help you or anyone out in the future.

ok we went from a post on Jan 10 to a new post on March 2. I suspect Shannon forgot what she originally posted this for. This leads to a suggestion to all who post scenarios. If you post a scenario you better be available to answer questions about it. You put yourself out as a scenario expert and when you don't respond to the questions from the group it makes you look incompetent. so bottom line, if you post a scenario please stick around until the scenario has reached it's logical conclusion. There have been a number of scenarios posted with responses for a while and then the original poster vanishes leaving those who replied in the dark. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of good scenario posters out there but some others are not so good.

ok, if a crew member came to the er spouting a gcs of 6 on a cardiac arrest I'd ask what kind of freaking moron are you? Anyone who puts a gcs of 6 on a cardiac arrest that has their eyes open is just STUPID. Plain and simple.

99.9999999% of the time the patient will not know that you are infected. Just like the majority of time we won't know that they are infected.

With the new information given by the poster, thanks for that clarification. I'd let her go too. It's not my responsibility to worry about her. Plus as a risk management part, I am also mitigating my risk in my health insurance pool as I will not have to cover someone whose medical bills are likely to drive my health insurance rates up in the next rate quote cycle. But if we get universal healthcare we can all pay for this persons health issues.

I still think that someone with HIV should not be working in EMS. The risk is there however slim like brock said. Can you imagine the liability that an employer would face from the patient if a caregiver passed hiv, hep b, hep a or c or any other infectious disease to a patietn?. What about the restaurants who'se employee passed on Hep A to 100 or 500 patrons. Employers simply cannot accept that form of liability. Think of the personal liability to you as a person if you were hiv positive or hep b or whatever and you passed the disease on to a patient. There are just some diseases that people have that automatically should preclude them from working in EMS. But then that's also my opinion.

I too have had this partner. I too have been considered by some to be the person of last resort that they send problem employees to. maybe this person has some sort of learning disability that causes them to not do well. But that might be a moot point because they passed their emt class and made it thru testing I would not give him 4 or 5 days to research anything in order to see how motivated he is I would spell out in writing what you and your service expect of him. If he's not already in the sights of the HR department then he needs to be. If you are his last straw then HR needs to be involved. I would sit down with him on your first shift. Go over expectations and tell him that you are going to be asking him to do some work outside of his normal shift times. Give him something simple at first. Then graduate to the hard stuff. If he shows no impetus to gather information that you have asked him to then you need to note that in some type of writing method. I would strongly urge you to develop if you don't have a process yet but develop some sort of evaluation method and let him see what you are going to be looking for. He has to know that since you are the partner of last resort that his time has come to either put up or shut up. He needs to know that he will either pass with you or he might be out of a job. This is a personnel issue and if they are not involved in this process then they are just setting you up for failure. Good luck Brock, I wish you and the emt the best. One last thing to remember and it has been touched on in some other posts in the past couple of days and Dust seems to push this, not everyone is cut out to be an emt or medic. There are some people who just cannot do the job no matter how many chances you give them. Some people are more apt to work for wal mart or the post office or mcdonalds. Your employer is not required to give this kid a job. It's not a god given right now that he has his emt license that he is guaranteed a job in ems. The worst thing that you and your company can do is to put this guy on a bls transfer truck(wheelchair van) if he fails your phase. That's defeating the purpose. Putting him on a transfer truck where he has no way to see actual patients is of no benefit to him. Eventually this guy will go to medic school and become a bad medic. (he coudl become a great medic but I doubt it). Giving him false hope is a failure of your service not of him. Just my 2 cents which is really worth only 1/3 of 2 cents.

Isn't this just common sense? I seem to recall an old adage "First, do no harm" Seems like someone with HIV or Hep-c or Hep-b could be a nightmare. I have excema on my fingers. This causes the skin around the excema to split open and bleed slightly. I always covered those with liquid skin and then bandages and then gloves so I know the patient was protected. I was more worried about patient to me versus me to patient infections but I was never 100% positive that I was completely protected. Here is my list of conditions that either preclude you from working in EMS or would require you to sit out until you are better. HIV(preclude) Hep a - sit out till better All the other heps - precludes you from workin in EMS TB - precludes you from working Ebola (if you survive you can work again) ha ha ha That's just my starting list

Ok after reading all the threads on this particular post I went back and re-read the original post. Not only does this person identify where the emt was at, they identified some of what the patient did. Take that further they have now perpetuated the rumor that the person is going to get their license pulled and they are going to get fired. the original poster says that they do not like this woman. I find this sort of post disconcerting. We have a poster with an professed dislike of this person who is in psych trouble and he posts rumors and the like. After re-reading this original post I find the motives of the original poster suspect and disconcerting.