bbbrammer

Right at four minutes. I liked that. Had to go and do it twice. Think I'll try more of them.

Wasn't around the holidays, but it was still bad. Car wreck. Parents killed immediately. Small kids in back alive but trapped. Needed extrication. SUV fuel tank caught fire. Every fire truck in the city put H2O on fire. Nothing helped. All we could do was stand there and watch and listen to the kids burning alive. I can still hear their screams. Have had several holiday calls that were sad, but every single one of them was eclipsed by this one call. I think it was having to listen to them screaming and being absolutely helpless that got me. Worst thing I have ever heard in my life.

Not. As bad as it sucks, I think all of it put together is what makes my life what it is. Next Question: Cop shoots bad guy. Bad guy shoots cop. Bad guy hurt worse. Do you help cop first in the spirit of 'we take care of our own', or do you help the bad guy first in spirit of medical ethics?

You are making assumptions Doc. I never said I was still in school. I have been on the streets for years as a matter of fact. I also never said I was 'shadowing' nurses and I did spend an entire year working specifically with a physician, not with nurses. I know why we do hospital clinicals, but just because we are supposed to learn about as many disease types as possible doesn't mean we should self-restrict our education to only that. During my clinicals I made an effort to get to know some of the nurses at some of the hospitals I was at, and because of that when I bring a patient in now years later the nurses don't treat me like some kind of nameless/faceless medic who brought them more work. They recognize me and what I have done for that patient, and I have found that the patient care transitions are better handled. Mutual respect is what I am striving for. I am sure that you appreciate it when the nurses give you respect at work instead of treating you like the only reason you exist is to get their patients out of there as fast as possible. I would appreciate it if fewer of them act as if I went trolling for that patient no one wants just so I could bring them to the ER to make their life miserable. I would also appreciate it if some of my fellow EMT's would take the time to look around and realize that the ER is overflowing and that they may have to wait a few minutes until a nurse is free instead of getting angry. Mutual respect. Not an impossible thing to work towards for all of us.

Nicely done ak. Smacks of an English or Creative writing class project, but I am glad to see that I am not the only adult in the world who still writes poetry or short stories in the literary style. Cookies to you for not falling into today's society of the blatantly crass form of writing.

I did four nursing home rotations as a matter of fact. That was after working for two years in one. I am very understanding of what it is like to be an employee at one of those locations. I have also met several nurses who were understanding of what we do. It is just that 'understanding breeds empathy'. Perhaps if we all spent a little more time trying to get inside of what each profession entails, there would be a little less bickering about how long something takes, or maybe a little less of the 'us vs them' syndrome. I think it would help with providing a better continuity of care for the patient instead of the action/reaction of "I don't care what you think you did because it was before you got to the hospital". Same way I think my fellow EMT's could be a little less angry at the nurses who often times are overwhelmingly busy with multiple annoying patients while we just had to deal with one. This is not an attempt to start arguments, merely an attempt to encourage better EMS/Nursing relations.

I also don't work for them, but know several of their medics. What kind of info are you looking for? Bet some of us can help you out.

If I could change something about EMS, it would be to require nursing students (particularly RN students) to do several ambulance ride-outs as part of their clinicals. We often have to do several ER and hospital clinicals and that gives us an understanding of what their job entails, but they often don't know anything about what we do. Unless they are EMS trained too. It would never solve the problems everyone runs into in the ER, but maybe if they had to go through some of the things we go through out there, they would at least understand why we are grouchy/wet/covered in blood/or just having a bad day. Maybe if they were on a multi-car pileup and had to do all the work themselves prior to other units getting there, without techs/docs/housekeeping/other nurses to help out, they would be just a little more with it on why we never quite got that laceration all cleaned up. Maybe at the least it would be better than nothing at all.

Yahooligans

Made me laugh out loud. Had to show it to everyone else. I love it!

Some one should have sent a very short and sweet letter to the editor the next day that simply said "Sorry, but dead medics can't fix anyone."

Frozen

I would like to throw in that the location sounds familiar. We service about 3000 people, 4 towns (largest town pop. 900 people), 4 highways, 1 turnpike, cover half the county at 320sq mi, average call is two hours long and we have one truck. For this thrilling opportunity we get paid $60/24hr shift EMT-B and $80/24hr shift EMT-P. I will not argue that the pay rate you are going for is too much, on the contrary I wish ours was. But when you average only 30-35 calls a month, the revenue just isn't there. I forgot who it was that made a good point about threatening to not have the service. It wouldn't be to be mean, but it is a reality that they will have to face because your volunteers have to buy food and toilet paper too. You could also consider a subscription program. We have one here that is $45 per year and helps bring in a lot of income for the service. Depending on your population, the odds would be in your favor that you would make money on the program and not lose it. Other than that and what everyone else said about newspapers and the like, I don't have any more ideas. Though I do applaud you for taking up the torch to try to move the service in a more positive direction for the residents and fellow volunteers. Good luck to you!

You know what freaks my husband out is when I go to bed early because I have a feeling there will be an early call. Happened a couple of days ago. Night before felt there would be a call come in before I got out of bed, around nine am. I was off an hour, call came in at eight am. The fun part is knowing that they are going to come in and actually getting out of bed early so you have time to use the restroom, brush teeth, etc before you have to leave. On the other hand it is not totally foolproof and people do tend to think you are some kind of weird crazy person or just get scared of you. Definitely don't want too many people to know about it.