Just Plain Ruff

But a full year like most are told to get? Surely not!!!!

insinuating, there's no insinuating about it. and strictly is strictly a loosely based term based on a lightly defined statement of partially understood definition of truth that underlies everything in the universe from "here hold my beer" all the way from "what happens in vegas stays in vegas" up to "no new taxes" to "I turned over all the pertinent emails and deleted all the others and my husband didn't have sex with that woman" but not to leave out "I retired"

I wonder how many total years of experience actually is found on this board? I have been in EMS since 1996(off and on), non practicing at this time but still working in a health care environment, making ER's and now inpatient floors safer environments in terms of charting on medical records. Hoping to return to the field in the next 2-3 months in a strictly part time basis. So I guess 20 years nearly for me. Feel free to ask more questions, the looney bin is available for your perusal at any time.

AMEN brother, don't let anyone (my opinion here) tell you that you have to get a year of experience as an EMT first before going to medic school. That's just balderdash I say, balderdash, a rumor which has gotten spread by many well meaning people over the years.

Don't you mean, overcharge canadian medicare and medicaid? Plus whatever is left over from the donations to your service that you don't spend you can put into your RV to end all RV's right?

I also like green eggs and ham, but green medics are usually moldy and moldable into very good medics because they don't have bad habits that they have learned from being an EMT for a year that they have been fed from that line of bullshit that someone told them they had to be a emt for a year before going to medic school which just isn't true. As you can see, I have not had my 64 ounces of diet soda yet.

he means that he already has all the other bells and whistles and has a surplus budget to spend before his fiscal year is over. ha ha just kidding

of course there is Mike, I was just saying that this tool could be mis-used just like any other tool and there should be guidelines as to how to use it. for example - using the ultrasound on a friend to show them what their baby looks like and an anomoly is found - that's mis-use. Using it to look at an area of pain for a friend and finding some sort of abnormality, that's mis-use because you are not using in a actual patient care activity. One example personally - we had these new IV catheters that were supposed to be placed in patients for long term IV use. We had not been trained and they were only to be used by those trained by the IV team. One night we were bored (if alcohol was involved we would have said "here hold my beer") and we practiced on another medic in the ED. We placed the IV cath correctly but did not pull the needle out and leave the catheter for advancement. Placed the IV cath in the AC space, advanced it and the medic said he felt a pop in the biceps area and the next thing we know his arm is swelling up like a baloon because we damaged the vein. No long term effects other thana really sore arm. That's similar to the mis-use I'm talking about. make more sense?

well, I would think that some of the mis-use would be from certain medics, NOT saying you have them, but doing ultrasounds on themselves. Or someone doing ultrasounds on family members or friends to show them the cool new toy. That's the mis-use I was referring to. Refer back when Nitrox was just being implemented in some services. I know direct knowledge of some crews using the nitrous on them selves. There is a well spread rumor in KC MO that one of the ambulance wrecks that caused thousands and thousands of dollars damage was caused by one EMT who was abusing nitrous and driving. It was not a good thing.

good thoughts but you just know it will be mis-used by your not so honest medics and emt's. But that aside I've used on in the ED but never on the ambulance. I think that the broad reasons for having this would be apparant, fetal monitoring would be the most used I think. the learning curve wasn't steep, but you have to have a good trainer. I think it would be just one more (expensive) tool in your arsenal of tools. Interesting to see where it goes from here for you, I'd be interested to see what it was actually used for. Just have a pretty rigid set of guidelines set up to use it, and I would only allow it used by one or two medics for the roll out.

But what will they do with all the money they have to spend, if not for the newest and greatest toys???

you said Ambulance Driver, he he he

Ok, clarification. I'm not saying don't ask don't tell, I'm saying don't be all out there and make a huge deal of it. Of course people care, you saw what happened in Indiana and Arkansas over the past 2 months so people do care. What I'm saying is sure, tell me you are gay or don't tell me. If it comes up in conversation fine but once it crosses over to a big deal and begins to affect working relationships that is when I have an issue with it. Of course this stuff comes up in conversation and discussions but what I hate to see is for someone to make it a priority to tell everyone their business. I've worked with many gay and lesbian people and the ones who didn't make a big deal about it were those I preferred over the ones who made every little thing about their sexual preference and if you said anything negative about the person it always, per that LBGT person, was about their sexual identityu when it wasn't. Again, i don't care if you are gay, les, straight or whatever, that's not what should be driving the working relationship anyway. It's not "don't ask, don't tell" it's don't make a huge deal of it.

somebody had to say it. I do agree, don't ask don't tell. It really should not matter.

But I am a paragod, I will not stoop to doing bls skills only. I must drop a ET tube and start an IV on everyone. To hell with my employers requirements, I'm not a emt I'm a damn paragod Jim!!!!