crotchitymedic1986

Dont know about you guys, but i am just crying a river for paramedics who bitch about making over $60k per year.

i echo what everyone else has said, get your NR while everything is fresh in your head. I would say the same thing for any instructor certifications you can get. You may never use it, but it gives you opportunities for the future. You never know what life will throw at you. Also note that you may not know what the qualifiers for NR certification will be in 5-10 years; if they increase the standards, you may not qualify without taking another course.

so i guess when you are working a code, you dont allow firefighters to ride with you, because they havent signed a release ?

actually most pediatric facilities allow the families to watch codes being performed on their children, as it allows the parents to know that all that could be done was done. as far as someone sueing you because you allowed them to ride, anything is possible, but if the accident is not your fault, it will be hard to get a judgement against the ambulance service, although many may choose to settle, versus spending money to defend it.

whatever you do, dont go with the cheap ones like you find at walmart. You will be lucky if they last 60 days.

Sorry: CHF does not have to have edema or N&V, especially early on. MI does not have to have chest pain. Barrel Chest and pursed lips are a result of years of CHF, not new onset. PE does not have to have an arrythmia The reality is that the patient could be any of the above, especially if his CHF or COPD symptoms are occuring for the first time in his life. That is the problem with this scenario.

There is no reason a family member can not ride up front, seatbelted, unless you have something to hide.

scary stuff -- thanks for forwarding it on, never heard of it before

I am sorry, if my tax dollars paid for your ambulance, I will ride up front with you. If for no other reason, to protect my family member from the ambulance personnel. Hate to say it, but after reading all of these news stories about patients being molested, beaten, or injured in ambulance crashes, there is no way I would leave anyone i loved, alone in the back of an ambulance.

Dust you know i love you, but i have to disagree: wasnt it better when we were able to intubate live surgery patients back in the day, in the presence of an anesthesiologists ? wasnt it better when you had to start your first IVs on your classmates ? practicing emergency driving when there is no stress, and no patient's life hanging in the balance is better than driving lights and sirens for the first time on a real call. I imagine some sort of preceptor is used that can totally fixate on driving skills, not a partner who is looking up the call in his mapbook or texting his baby's momma.

Go here to start: http://ruralhealth.hrsa.gov/funding/outreach.htm. Also think about the specific equipment you need and then match it to likely donors: pediatric equipment, your local peds hospital --- cardiac monitors -- Medtronic grants, Spinal Immobilization -- NHTSA. Many AED companies will do a buy one get one free deal. Just be careful, as grants usually have strings attached, and mandatory quarterly/annual follow-up paperwork of some kind.

People were desensitized to sirens a long time ago. I think this is a great idea if done correctly. There is only so much you can learn on a cone course. I would start in the rural environment, and then move them more and more urban, but I wouldnt let the practice during hours that kids would be out and about

it was a simple question guys. Everyone learns differently, but creating flash cards seems to be one of the best universal methods of learning such things (drug on one side, dosage on the other, drug on one side, class on the other, etc......)

I am not scared: The first order of business is alway Airway with cspine control, breathing, and then circulation. The first trained persons on the scene would most likely hold manual C-spine, while others do a primary survey of the whole body. At some point the patient would be immobilized and moved to the back of the ambulance, where a more detailed assessment could be performed. IV access would be obtained enroute to the hospital, as well as further care that would be dictated by his injuries. If his ribs had punctured a lung, the patients pneumothorax or tension pneumothorax would be addressed. His leg would be splinted, but the type of splinting would vary by which bone was fractured. He may or may not require oxygen. He would be transported to a trauma center, should such a thing exist near where he was injured.

can someone suggest where i can get a porn tape of virusus getting it on ?

Beop -- yes, Fire and Police are both more dangerous and have a higher injury rate than EMS, unless you count air ambulance personnel. Currently air ambulance death/injury rates are on track to surpass the most dangerous professions (deep sea fishing and logger).

following up on tskstorms thoughts. I knew of a trauma center that had its own hospital based ems service. they ran into the same problem of crews "waiting on the wall" for a bed or room. What they did, was to put extra ambulance stretchers in the area, and when a "second" truck from their organization got stuck on the wall, the second ambulance crew would take responsibility for the first crew's patient and their patient, then the first ambulance would go in service with one of the spare stretchers. If no other ambulance came in, a supervisor would wait with the patient to get signatures. Before anyone blows a gasket, the patients waiting on the wall were low-acuity (not active MIs or major traumas).

I disagree with never pass on the right. You should try to minimize it, but in reality, you can not say "never pass on the right". For instance, are on a four lane street with a concrete median divider and a dedicated left turn lane; the light is red, all cars turning left are in their lane, and up against the concrete median, the cars in the second lane move right, opening up a path for you to go between lanes 1 and 2. Are you going to sit there for 5 minutes blasting your airhorn, making all the cars in the turn lane move right, when you have an open lane ? Same for the interstate, all the cars have pulled left onto a grass median, are you going to pass them on the left (in the grass) and get stuck in the mud ? But you should definitely slow down to less than 5mph when you pass someone on the right.

You raise a good point, as I have hired/fired several middle-aged, incredibly well educated, individuals who could not function in the EMS world (usually engineers or pilots who retired from first job). Some people can only function in careers that are strictly black & white with no grey. On the flip side, I know some very street smart individuals who could use more instruction (they know when to give the drug, but dont know why they are giving the drug). It would seem that somewhere in the middle is where you want to be; i found that one of the most ideal characteristics a medic can have is a good sense of humor. I am not sure why, but the funny guy is usually one of the better medics, whereas the jerk that has a permanant scowl in his face is usually the most incompetent.

Not trying to insult you, but it sounds as though there may be more to the story. Obvioulsy every company has their standards, but firing someone over documentation and map reading, seems a little odd. Unless they worked on it with you multiple times, and you failed to respond. It sounds as if you were so nervous, you were probably very "scattered" on calls, so they probably fired you for that, but documented the other two issues as the cause. Go back to the nonemergent side, and work at least a year or until your confidence is increased.

I will take it a step deeper: Just like in the cellular level in the body, every body cell has a purpose or "job", what if we (humans) are just cells in a much larger creature. Maybe we EMTs are the red blood cells of this being, charged with transporting oxygen to an fro.

Having sex with someone who has aids, does not guarantee that you will get aids. Anyone that is dumb enough to have unprotected sex with a stranger deserves to contract aids, so I would say it is not terrorism, but actually darwinism at its finest.

I would actually invite you to convene a "summit" with a representative of each ems agency and each hospital, to see what could be done. Come to the meeting armed with stats and facts, as to how this is affecting your response to 911 calls. There are a multitude of strategies that could be employed, and you may find that the ER staff is on your side, as most of the time the load is pushed down on them with no help from above. My policy was always, "I will give you 20 minutes", and then I am calling the House Supervisor. If they fail to respond to your request for a summit, or the summit fails, contact JCAHO. Again be ready with facts, not just opinions.

go to http://www.emsnetwork.org/, click on news, then click on crash log. All major accidents are listed, usually with names and organizations.