Just Plain Ruff

That's awesome thanks for sharing nothing inappropriate about it.

if I remember the original post, the patient was Baker Acted and that means that they are supposed to have a psych eval in 96 hours before they can get out or go on to a psych facility. Psych patients do not act like other patients. I had a perfectly normal acting psych patient until I asked him his name and he said he was Jesus. I have never pressed charges against a psych patient, I've tried but after being told by a veteran paramedic not to because it won't go anywhere due to the "mental Illness" defense. Prosecutors are very very reluctant to file charges on psych patients. I have been assaulted by psych patients, had one stab me in the shoulder with my pen when she signed the papers for financial responsibility. She didn't get charges filed. I've been assaulted by a drunk trauma patient and then her boyfriend got in the melee, she was not charged but the boyfriend was. Was I hurt badly in any of the assaults - no. Do I believe that people need to have consequences attached to their actions - absolutely but you have to pick your battles. If you were not hurt badly and by your post it sounds like your ego and security were more injured than you and this is a normal feeling when a patient assaults you. It doesn't make you a lesser person. But we as a society have become so much about "getting even" or making someone pay that I am sure that pressing charges is along those lines. Chalk this up to a learning experience. Go back and look at what you did and didn't do to keep yourself safe. Go back and review why it got to this point and what you can do in the future to keep this from happening again.

http://www.spservices.co.uk/product_info.p...roducts_id/1478 here's a link for ya. to me it looks just like a roll of clear plastic like you would get at any grocery store. Sterilize that roll of Kling wrap from the grocery store and use it.

Ok, let me ask a question, if you are working on the ambulance for your service, shouldn't your service foot the bill for your attorney? I think they should but the real world is that they more than likely won't. I never did take into account the possbility of having to pay for my own lawyer, with that said, then maybe some sort of insurance to cover the attorney's fees that you will incur but I still feel that malpractice or liability insurance is not a great idea but it's really only like 20 hours or work so maybe it is worth it. I probably won't get it for me but for others who might want it I'd say if you can afford it then get it.

shoot me a pm, I have a service who uses them in my area. I still have some contacts at that service. I also used to work at that service so I can probably help you out.

Here is a rule of thumb you might want to remember If you have a pocket that is deep then they will go after you. So if you have a million dollars in liability insurance and the hospital or ambulance has 500K guess who they will be going after. Sure you can be named in the suit but once they determine your financial ability and as a emt or medic we don't have a huge amount of money they can go after, You will more than likely be dropped from the list. there are notable exceptions and sure you could get sued but like I say, they can't get blood from a turnip they can take my house and car but most lawyers won't really pursue it if it's going to leave you homeless and destitute. That's my take on the matter. I've been in the field for almost 16 years and I have never carried liability insurance. You make yourself too much of a financial target that way.

well after reviewing study stack's other non-medical offerings I have found that there are so many spelling errors in their flash cards that I would use it only as a review tool. If I wanted to learn something I would not use them as my only resource.

I can only say one thing to you, welcome to EMS. This is a common issue among healthcare workers throughout the country. You are not alone in this. Psychiatric patients who assault you, especially Baker Acted patients are pretty much non-prosecutable. Sure, you can try to press charges but due to the fact that they were baker act patients you are probably barking up a non-climbable tree. I think that if you continued to shake the tree you might find a prosecutor who would be willing to prosecute but psych patients have a unique defense, they don't get charged for assaulting you or I because who wants to prosecute a psych patient, especially one who is baker acted. Defense attorneys eat this kind of stuff up. Chalk it up to experience and a lesson learned, never never never never turn your back on a psych patient or go in a room without enough help. I truly feel for your situation but I dont' think you are going to get much traction on the prosecuting thing. Other patients, not psych patients, are easier to press charges on.

I was going to recommend this site http://www.studystack.com/category-2 but see disclaimer Disregard - that site has too many misspelled words and gross errors on history and other items that I cannot recommend that site. you can still go to the site and look at the items but I would not entrust it with your grades. It's good for general knowledge

Try here. Pretty good info. http://www.answers.com/topic/preload-cardiology

fair enough, I'm always up for a friendly debate. I'm glad that you admit that it could have been taken by me the wrong way and you really didn't ruffle my feathers, I was simply defending my perception of apersonal attack. now that I know where you came from and your point of view I no longer take it as a personal attack. I love a spirited debate and it's all good. If I let everything like this get under my skin then I'd be a very unhappy person so I let it roll off. but I do defend myself as I expect the same from someone who I offend or make angry. take care, be safe and God speed.

so let's say that you are 25 minutes from hospice, and the patient dies. how can you justifiably say they were alive until they got to hospice? Do you falsify your run report and say they died when they got to hopsice or what do you do? I'm curious - the patient is dead in your ambulance for 20 minutes yet they didn't die until they got to hospice???? explain please

good points laura but you have made a tremendous amount of assuptions about me and they are wrong. you really seem to think you know how I treat my patients and you do not so I'd appreciate it if you would not assume so much. you state here: Since when is a medical condition considered crapola? What else in your medical world do you consider not to be a true 'medical condition'? You even say it yourself that it's a "valid sydrome and illness". Peripartum psychosis is a level deeper than post partum and it DOES exist. So if you don't think so, but the world of medicine states it does when are we going to stop playing this oh my goodness she has a syndrome or he was just suffering from some sort of issue. - my reply - when did I ever state that this syndrome was not a valid syndrome - I believe I said that it is a syndrome but that it's used too much in the world of the blame game. You then go on to state this in your reply : Again you state that you recognize it as a medical condition but you'll post that you'd turn your head to it because it's crapola. Interesting. You are letting your emotions dictate your care rendered to individuals? You feel you can discriminate due a persons medical history? Very interesting. Regardless of what kind of people you allow in your heart, if these types of people were your patients, you should treat them as your patients. It's up to the courts and to God to decide the fate of the mother. She's probably paying for her illegal actions in more ways than any that have been posted. My reply - when did I ever say I'd turn my head to that? You also say that I discriminate due to a persons medical condition - I NEVER said anything to the contrary - again there you go with the generalization and the accusation that I discriminate. Please stop that. You then stated: Never once was it stated that murder or abuse in any fashion was OK, so let's keep to the facts. Sorry that this case happened, but bad cases happen all the time. Keeping your head screwed on straight and doing your job appropriately is what will keep not only you, but others safe from you. If you can't do this, you endanger everyone around you. Do what needs to be done afterwards to release any emotional battles you have, but on scene, do your job My reply: you again accuse me of not keeping my head on straight and not doing my job which again is not fair. Not sure where you get off saying that I endanger everyone around me. You are out of line on that one. Now you have really stated a large amount of generalizations about and you do not know me. YOu have accused me of not being professional towards patients, not keeping my head and discrimination. I'd appreciate it if you would not make those kinds of generalizations about me. I have not made those kinds of genearlizations about you yet you felt it totally appropriate to make them about me. so I will respond appropriately and professionally. It's getting out of hand. I never once said that post partum depression was not a valid illness but I'm sick and tired of people using any sort of excuse to get out of taking responsiblity for their actions. It used to be that at one time people took responsibility for the actions that they did instead of regressing back to some syndrome of the day. Post partum depression is a syndrome and an illness but it's being used too often these days to explain away many terrible things. And how do you know those bruises weren't caused by her boyfriend after she used the kid as a paperweight to hit him. I can tell you that if the mother of my child used my child as a weapon against me then she'd look a heck of a lot worse than she did. There is more to this story than what we've read and I don't really care why she took the actions that she did but in the end she got what she deserved, prison time. I hope you read my first post on this when I said I'd take care of the child and then take care of her after the kid was taken care of. I have never let emotions get the best of me on a call and never ever will. You just assume that I do please don't make that assumption. We can agree to disagree but when you resort to generalizations and assumptions and accuse me of things in your post that I am totally not about I do tend to get a bit upset.

Give me a freakin break. She swung him in an intent to injure her boyfriend during a fight. There was no other way around it, she took the closest weapon she had and hit her boyfriend. unfortunately the weapon of choice seemed to be a little boy. Let's not go into this post partum depression crapola here, I knwo it's a valid syndrome and illness but this was a woman who was out to hurt her boyfriend not a woman who was so post partum depressed that she didn't know what she was doing. I'm all for treating post partum depression and I know it's a valid illness but to link post partum depression to a woman who used her kid as a Mace to hurt her boyfriend is someone who deserves to go to jail and DOES NOT DESERVE OUR SYMPATHY. I have no place in my heart for two types of people - child abusers and pedophiles. I remember a case a couple of years ago where the police stopped a man who was violent and suicidal who had his 5 week son in the car with him. the man got out of the car with the child in his arms. He then took the child by the feet and slammed the childs head into the concrete, (child survived) but the cops opened fire and killed the dirtbag. The bleeding hearts were upset at the cops for killing the man. Do we chalk that one up to mental illness and say, OH it's ok, he had an imbalance. I'm sick and tired of giving excuses to every little syndrome out there. Oh, you have an imbalance, sure, it's not your fault you are a child molester, oh you have an imbalance, well you didn't know k illing someone was bad. theres a case going on right now where a 43 year old deaf woman, kidnapped, killed and dismembered a young woman and dumped the body parts along a road. She's deaf. They are arguing that her being deaf should preclude her from getting the death penalty because she can't put on a valid defense due to the "Lost in translation" legaleze to plain english. Being deaf didn't preclude her from killing this young woman so why should it preclude her from getting the chair. So as you can see, I have strong opinions about things, I'm ranting and raving but come on.

Whew, that was harsh. I tend to agree that the post might be in the wrong forum but dang, that was harsh.

what is more sad is that amount of people in that house. ONe family had 17 (I think) living in one apartment. That's what's sad no wonder why so many died.

Yeah, my suspicion is that this isn't a 911 or a ALS Transfer service. Nor do I believe it's a bls transfer service, simply a wheelchair van or similar. TSK, please clarify your post. It's quite alarming to me at least.

Does anyone else have a issue with this post??? you can refuse a patient who obviously needs ambulance transport the intubated patient or patient needing oxygen? Explain that please. Are you just a basic life support transport unit or do you work on a transfer van? I can see you refusing then but if you are an ambulance and you refuse that type of patient then I find issue with that. So if you refuse a patient who has unstable vitals and such who do you call? you can also refuse to transport patients you deem unsafe to you? ? ? Explain that too. Do you refer them to law enforcement or do you just leave the scene and let them fend for themselves. If you are a service that has paramedics then I find your reasons to refuse to transport very very troubling.

Rid, you are totally off base here, how dare you say we have to parent our own children isn't that the governments responsibility or daycares??? All kidding aside, yes, you have to parent your own child. You have the ultimate responsible in the end for their well being, safety and morals. WE too often have others rear our children, Myself and my wife are guilty of this during the week as Liam is in daycare but that's because my wife works and I travel so we do what we have to do. The good thing is, that my wife's work has a daycare that LIam is in and my wife sees him for lunch every day. Come Friday saturday and sunday, I am with my son nearly 24 hours a day either playing, napping, eating or just sitting down and talking. I know every one of his friends first and last names, I know everything he does at daycare and in return he knows most of everything about me. It's a two way street. If you do not connect with your children then you run the risk of their connecting with someone else and that sometimes is not a good thing. You keep a close eye on your children and bad things still happen. I can remember one day, my son was watching the Wiggles and I ran to the bathroom. when I got back Liam had gotten up on the dining room table and what I got to see when I was walking in the room was Liam leaping off the dining room table onto the counter in the kitchen. Scared the bejesus out of me. I asked him what he was doin and he said "I'm batman dad! cant you tell by the mask" (no mask but he said he had one on) We cannot keep them safe 100% of the time, we'd like to but we cannot. To have a study published to tell nearly everyone who has kids what they already know was a waste of money.

I have a son who has that exact spiderman costume. He also has Buzz Lightyear and Superman as well as Batman He indeed does get superpowers(at least he thinks he does) by wearing those costumes but then again he also has superpowers when he is in his civies. Children will play superhero no matter if they are in a costume or out. It doesn't take a rocket scientist or someone throwing money to a researcher to know what parents from all over the world already know. Kids think they have superpowers no matter if they are wearing a costume or not. just ask my son who he thinks he is most of the time? He's either superman, batman or the boy who wrestles with his father and usually wins. Duh!

Foley's is that taught in your medic class? It sure wasn't in mine. I learned how to do them in my training at the hospital I worked at. I won't even tell you what my first foley was on.

searching google brings back a show called "The Call" but its on at midnight on some junk network and it has to do with a bunch of theater hopefuls waiting for the "Call" after an audition. Sort of a theater reality show. No mention of EMS related "The Call" shows.

treat the kid like you normally would, your emotions should not play into treating the child until after the child is taken care of. Then you can seek out and eliminate the offending party with EXTREME PREJUDICE

Don't sleep until the preceptor says it's ok don't turn on the TV until someone else does. Study while not doing anything Ask lots of questions learn the unit and where things are You are not expected to know everything, just the basics. That's why there are questions that you should ask. If you have a late call don't bitch If you don't run a call for the entire shift(hey it happens) don't bitch But in the end, glean whatever you can from the knowledge base that you are given. Oh yeah, stay off the computer unless you are studying for a test. Don't log onto your myspace account, don't send emails and by all means DON'T USE THE COMPUTER TO LOOK AT PORN or other objectionable websites. I had a student do that and we caught him. He's no longer a student, I think he cleans the restrooms at the airport near me now.

it's amazing that people who live in glass houses always seem to throw the most stones. This guys a moron. Oh my oh my, we should have let the kids out in this storm. Whoops, there goes another one, out of Kansas off to the land of OZ, oh my there goes the Baker's Car - it looks like a pinata getting pummeled by the wind of this tornado What I dont' understand and maybe someone can help me with this, Was there not a basement to put these kids into? why crowd them into a hallway where one collapsed roof could have killed everyone in the hallway. Do they not have basements in schools or was this school below the water line or unable to have a basement? I'm not clear on that point. thanks