crotchitymedic1986

Sex in the ambulance, paramedics with egos and an "I am bulletproof attitude" ; sounds pretty realistic to me.

In this day of cellular technology, it is difficult to not find a parent for a minor. Usually, when this occurs, the minor is at school or day-care, and in most states the teachers/principals of the school are deemed "guardians" for all of the children while on that property, and can make choices regarding transport to the hospital or not. As far as emancipated children, all they have to do is get pregnant.

What we can learn from Fire: 1. Learn how to use your EMS job as just your "benefits" job, while you earn your real money at your private business. 2. Watch porn at work and fart on each other. 3. Dress like a landscaper. 4. Learn how to hide your latent homosexual tendencies (if your painting some rooky's penis with hydrant paint, or making the rookie go naked for some reason or another, I am sorry, you are a homosexual.

I stand by my statement, as most Paramedics have average IV skills at best. Work some time in a pediatric hospital or as a phlebotomist at a busy hospital, and you will dramatically watch your skills improve. Are there some patients who do not have ANY venous access, yes, but most of those are chronically ill to terminally ill, and usually have a port in place. Your average overweight diabetic patient has veins, you just forgot your vein anatomy diagram, and are relying on sight instead of feel. One of the things I always did with newbies was to blindfold them and make them find veins on their partner by feel, with no use of sight. And now that you can buy those vein finding lights, there is no excuse to poke holes in people's bones. 20 years from now, the next generation of EMS professionals will look at IOs like we do lobotomies or intracardiac injections.

People in glass ambulances should not throw stones, I wonder if this has ever happened where you work: Paramedic McDreamy calls out sick because he was out drinking all night and too hung over to come in (or he was up all night at his other full-time job). Captain(s) Whiteshirt are too lazy to get on the ambulance, so we make it a BLS ambulance, or we just shut it down, and then at some point in the day we do not have enough ambulances or ALS ambulances to handle our call volume. How are officers refusing to get on the truck any worse than the Doctor who would not take call for another Doctor; in both situations, patients suffer ?

The patient admitted to taking 20 Aspirin, that should have been enough to transport. When all else fails, you should have "medical control" that you can call (local ER Doc if nothing else)to assist you in making the correct decision. In the future, involve a doctor.

24 hour shifts are dangerous, I can't wait for the day when they are gone (being one of the fortunate ones who was in a 3am ambulance accident because my partner fell asleep at the wheel). If there are any bloated services left that run too many ambulances, I am sure this economy will correct that. With most services running lean, you are probably better off working 12s unless you have a really long commute. If you do work a 24, stay up the whole 24 and sleep on your day off, too me it was easier than trying to sleep 20 minutes here and maybe an hour later on. Your body will get used to the change.

1. At best, your income will be around the 100,000/year mark, so work within that budget to start (start part-time at pay per call instead of per hour). 2. Go to local industry for donations, explaining that when their worker is injured there may or may not be an ambulance to respond. 3. Do bake sales, CPR classes, car washes, spaghetti dinners, golf tournaments, photography packages, anything you can do to raise money and awareness. 4. There are federal grants for rural health care, pursue those (as well as all other grants). 5. Realize that if you got what you wanted tomorrow, your department would most likely cost more than any other department (unless you have a large jail) in your county, so you have to realize you cant get everything you want on day 1; but if you made it happen over 3 years would the community not be better off than if you just threw up your arms in frustration and walked away ? 6. Raising taxes is rarely the successful option, find ways that individuals can donate. Do you have that one guy in your community that has more money than god; what if his large donation meant that the ambulance service was named "James Doe Ambulance Service", or the station was named the James Doe Station. You would be amazed at what stroking someones pride can do for your bottom line (or what if the ambulance had "In partnership with ABC Industries" on it's side ? There is a solution, but as always it will require alot of hard work. Are you the man for the job ? I think so. GO make it happen

If the patient walks out of the hospital, your efforts were adequate. Sounds crass, but CPR by EMS rarely matters as our response times are too long, and we are not involved enough in teaching community CPR so that the patient can get CPR when it matters. Its like a Chef who blames his staff for his cooking failures, because they didnt buy the right ingredients. If it is that important, he/she should shop for themselves. If you are serious about saving cardiac arrest patients, you should begin by making the first link of the chain stronger. How many CPR Saturdays has your department had this year ? Teach community CPR so you do not have to do it.

In male patients the superficial dorsal vein of the penis is a better option, as it is always accessible, and has less contradictions or should i say contradicktions ? Of course it means you have to touch a penis so that means the patient will die due to your homophobia. As far as skills slipping, youve heard me say it a million times, but the decline in those skills is directly attributal to ACLS becoming a "noone fails class". I remember having to strategically place trash cans around the room for people to puke in because they were so nervous about failing back in the old days. The last 4 times I took ACLS, I didnt even crack open the book and never scored less than a 98 -- that is so sad. Create a new class for the doctors who cant pass ACLS, but return Paramedic ACLS class to the old days, and you might actually have Paramedics who can start IVs and intubate.

You may have a much bigger issue to face being an ex-engineer. I had hired 3 employees that were former engineers who had retired early, and then wanted a totally different second career experience. After dealing with today's children that work in EMS, I thought it would be nice to have older, professional, adult employees in my workforce (employees that come to work on time, and dont call out 8 times per year) All four had trouble in EMS, as they could not deal with all the "gray areas" of EMS. They were all used to a rigid black/white or 2 + 2 always equals 4 type of workplace. Not saying you will have that issue, but it is something to consider. I dont think any of the three are still in EMS.

If you have to use an IO, you have poor IV skills.

Edited due to crossing the line...AK

A good thing to do is to meet with local church leaders to discuss these issues, many of which are cultural and not religous, but their spiritual leader will know the answers. There are many cultures where touching a body part is taboo, male or female, or is a sign of disrespect. You can then educate your staff.

Contact the folks at JEMS, you would be amazed at the list of contacts they have, or track the title and see if the original owner is still alive.

The smartest thing that you can do is to visit with an existing honor guard in your state, or neighboring state. I have never met any honor guard folks who were not willing to bend over backwards to help a department do it right. If you are not sure who has one, start with the bigger city or county services (usually Fire) in your state. In a rural environment, sometimes it is better to create a 2 or 3 county team so that you can share the expense and ensure that you have enough people to perform the duties necessary on short notice. Also, I would not give out uniforms until people have practiced for a long time, this is the type of thing that people will immediately sign-up for, but then stop doing because it requires more work than they realized.

I know that no one in this room would ever let a patient lie on a sheet or pillowcase that was used on a previous patient, but what about your coworkers ? Be Honest Now.

I do not believe that it is mandatory, I believe that it is highly recommended, but that could vary from state-to-state, country-to-country. Here is someone else's opinion: http://www.vaccinetruth.org/tb_testing.htm

1. The question would be why are you transporting a patient who can walk, that is insurance fraud. It is stupid to use your back to move an ambulatory patient, or to ask someone that is elderly to slide side to side when they can stand and pivot. 2. You are transporting the patient from the hospital, there is no emergency, you can read the chart on the way to the residence and get all the info you need. 3. You drove through a red-light, and the camera went off ---duuuuhhhhhhhh Sounds like she is just responding to your incompetence. No one can make you look stupid, only you can do that; dont blame her for noticing.

I think all of us by now have read, seen, or heard about the conspiracy theories that abound about the events of 9/11; do you believe any of them ? Have you watched the French Documentary; if so did it raise questions for you ? As far as me, I do not believe that Bush/Cheyney/or the government was complicent, but I do believe we shot down flight 93 over Pennsylvania; which would have been the correct thing to do at the time.

you answered your own question when you said your volly department had no rules or regulations. GET SOME. It does not matter what they do anywhere else, your organization needs to become professional and set some standards. Otherwise you are all opening yourself up to a huge liability.

no havent made it out yet --- and another suggestion, the 20th anniversary DVD of Eddie Murphy's Delirious standup came out last year I think -- for the young folks who missed it, the funniest stand-up of all time, his sequels sucked. Can anyone say goonie-goo-goo or ICECREAAAAAMMMMM

OK, here we go again. Lets step out of our box for a second, and ask what is the minimal an ER Doctor would do before he would "let the patient go", and like it or not, the patient has presented to you for care/evaluation, whether they called or not. If I put on my crocks and a spaghetti stained scrub shirt on (crotchity MD), I think I would do the following: 1. Atleast a Blood Alcohol Level (cant do that on the ambulance) 2. A Drug Screen to make sure alcohol is the only culprit (cant do that on the ambulance) 3. A glucose stick (we can do that) followed by a chem panel (electrolytes), possibly ABG (to prove not hypoxic -- cant do either on the ambulance) 4. Now if he has no signs of trauma and denies trauma/fall, I probably wouldnt do a CT Scan or MRI, but we all know Docs that would and do (cant do that on the ambulance). So if ER Docs, with all of their training, arent comfortable releasing drunks just because they can stand and can annunciate most words, why are we so quick to say SEE YA ! Every time you leave a drunk behind, you are one step closer to a lawsuit -- your choice.

ruff I loved last american virgin, as a matter of fact just bought the DVD off amazon a few months ago. You have to love the music, and although the ending was sad, it was one of the first "twist" movies that did not end the same old predictable way that all other teen love movies ended. Also, for male enjoyment only, rent the Wrestler, and see Marissa Tormei nude ---- NICE.

I promise you, the best movie out there, that no one saw is "The Prestige" starring Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, and Michael Cain. If you love the 6th sense, you will love this movie. Cant give away the details, but it is one of those that as soon as you finish watching it, you have to put it right back in to watch again, as the ending blows you away, and catches you totally off-guard.