Dustdevil

Meh... I can understand that. Maybe she was "to die for."

That is such a gross misinterpretation of such an important concept, that is so irrelevant to the topic at hand, that it borders on stupidity. :? Good assessment, One. But, when you really break it down, "public safety" is nothing more than an attitude, not a "system." If you took the average EMS agency and took away their uniforms, Bat Belts, ranks, lights, and sirens, would they still be "public safety?" They would still be performing the exact same jobs and functions in the exact same way. The only thing that changes is appearances. Look at all the other essential services performed by government agencies -- services that are much better funded and paid than us -- that are not "public safety." And, of course, look at all the other medical services that are better funded and paid than us who are not "public safety." It is quite obvious that "public safety" status is not a necessary factor for the growth or professionalism, or even the survival of EMS. What does such status bring to the table for us as a profession? Yes, we've traditionally been associated with "public safety" for the last thirty-five years. Your agency is. Most agencies are. But where has that gotten us? Nowhere. We are not a centimetre closer to professional status than we were when Emergency! hit the air in 1972. If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten. So far, that adds up to a big fat zero. It's time for a new vision.

And then there are all those "Patient Care Assistants" who couldn't be arsed with 'all that book learnin' to become a CNA. :roll: They all whine about not being payed as well as Real Nurses, just like EMTs do.

A phenomenon has occurred in the last twenty years that has created a lot more hate of dispatchers than in previous decades. Computerisation. We now have an entire generation of dispatchers who are nothing more than computer animated automatons, without an intelligent reasoning, free-thinking brain cell in their heads. Whatever the computer says is gospel, and any effort to dispute that is heresy. If the computer says Unit 1 is the closest unit, then no amount of protestation by Unit 2 that they are actually already on the scene is going to convince the dispatcher otherwise. It's just retarded. It's protocol-monkeying times ten. I worked one computerised SSM system where each night, at exactly midnight, the computer would tell the dispatcher to move us one district north of our current position. The "system," in it's infinite wisdom, seemed to think that we were more likely to be needed up north after midnight than down south. Almost every single night, like clockwork, we would catch an emergency run to the south within an hour after moving north. It was SO predictable! You might go a shift without it happening, but we NEVER caught a run to the north after moving north. Never. This went on for a solid year. It was brought up repeatedly in meetings and even charted statistically to prove the point. But it was said that "we" can't change the system. Only the computer can change the system. :roll: So yeah... computerisation and SSM are two things that have seriously hurt the reputations of dispatchers.

Given that much? Hell, that's three times more than I even carry. :?

Which is most important, punishment or correction? Are both actually important? If there were a pill that she could take to correct the behaviour flaw -- permanently and completely -- without her suffering any actual punishment, would that be good enough for you?

And each post would have to pass Quality Control by the Council Of Elders.

Yeah... what he said. :?

I completely agree. In both cases, I am completely unconcerned with the actor. It is only the behaviour that I consider. And the goal in both cases is the same: to protect society from such behaviour in the future. Agreed. But I don't believe that society has a responsibility to do that. Their only responsibility is to protect the rest of society from those behaviours by removing the offender from society for as long as s/he presents a danger. Any correctional or curative action is not society's responsibility to force upon them. I don't believe in corrections or criminal justice. I only believe in public safety. I am indeed familiar with the theory, as well as Skinner's views on it. He actually didn't believe in its practical validity any more than Marx believed in the practical validity of Marxism. I don't either. And that doesn't negate "shitty values" as a valid diagnosis. It only holds that such values are the result of the larger societal influence, i.e. bad parenting, violence on television, hoodlum friends, etc... That problem is beyond the control of society. That, again, is why I find it irrelevant when considering our solutions. But the fact remains that some people (though not necessarily the woman we are discussing) are just bad seeds. They're wired that way. Their elevators don't go all the way up. Societal influence is not really effective on them to any large degree. While they would definitely not be the elusive "autonomous man," they also would not be manipulable to any successful degree. Because, as much as I truly enjoy intelligent philosophical and psychological discussion, I simply don't like arguing overly emotional or unsolvable issues, especially with friends. Somebody's bound to get upset, offended, or even hurt, and it's not even possible for anybody to win. When nobody wins, we both lose. Well, that was my failed attempt at humour. But what I was getting at was that, if nobody can win, and we all eventually lose, it might as well be over, as there really is no point in continuing.

I don't think it's really a case of them not letting them have them. I think it is more of a case of the county not requiring them, so AMR isn't going to spend the money on anything they're not forced to spend money on. But yeah... still irresponsible.

Users with 3 posts who made all three within the last week: 295 Posts of substance from those 295 users: 5

At thirty-seven years old, I would sure hope not. Although, it can be said that senility is every bit as dangerous as immaturity. But your lack of medical education (not to be confused with all this "training" you keep mentioning) does make you more prone to missing important things, as well as being unable to care for them. If you are not a Paramedic, you are not competently prepared to decide what needs ALS and what does not. And, on those cases that you do decide needs ALS, most of the time the patient would be better served by just getting them to the hospital ASAP than waiting for medics, since you have already wasted fifteen minutes of critical time. Even more if you are spending time on-scene running EKGs that you can neither competently interpret (warning: you really don't want to argue this point) nor treat. Again, it sounds like you are actually more of a hinderance to quality emergency care for your students than an asset. I am sure that, whatever an "SFTP" is, it must be really advanced and impressive, and that my system sucks for not using it. Can you tell us what it is? And just how many doctors' offices do you have on your campus? :? The worth of an EMS system is not defined by it's "scope of practice." It is defined by the benefit it provides the community it serves. Quite honestly, it seems to me that the only people who truly benefit from your programme are the participants who get a hobby out of it.

There it is. I find that a great majority of those who fail EMT-B did not fail because they are stupid or incapable of grasping the subject matter. They failed it simply because they did not give sufficient effort to the class to learn enough to pass the test. They were interested in the class in the first place because they saw it to be quick and easy. It was a minimal investment of time and effort. And most of the EMTs they know are idiots anyhow, so they figured this had to be easy enough to pass. So they half arsed it. They never read their assignments more than once, if at all. They searched through the chapters enough to find the answers to the homework questions, but not enough to actually grasp the theory or concepts. They let their instructors' emphasis on skills convince them that skills was much more important than all that book learnin' anyhow, so why worry about it? They were shown a skeleton with 206 bones, but only required to learn the names of twelve of them, so this can't be really important, can it? EMT-B is very definitely not rocket surgery. It's not even high school level material. I have known people who were darn near illiterate pass it with flying colours. They did so because they were serious about it and gave it 110 percent effort, paying attention and asking questions in class, studying their arses off, and getting help where needed. There simply is no good reason for a literate person without medically verifiable learning disabilities to flunk the EMT-B written exam. Anybody who does should seriously consider that they are not cut out for it. Either they don't have the intelligence, or they just don't have sufficient professional desire. Either way, I don't want to work with them. And I sure don't want them working on my loved ones.

At first, I was concerned that these people would come back all pissed off about the comments we make about them. Then I realised, they're never coming back after that third post.

No sarcasm was intended. Well, maybe the whole "16lpm instead of 15" thing was a little sarcastic. But really, I was just wanting you to explain the system a little clearer. You said you hoped to turn this thread into something of substance, but you didn't really give us any substance to do that with in your original post. The second post doesn't go much further though. Carrying a monitor/defibrillator/pacer that you cannot use doesn't exactly qualify as a huge "scope of practice." What can you do that nobody else can do? And what education did you receive in those practices that nobody else receives? You say that "collegiate EMS is a great thing," but so far I can't see that you are providing your campus with anything they don't have without you. In fact, it seems like you are denying them ALS care and evaluation in a great many cases.

Well, kudos for being in the right forum, but the search feature is your friend. And we especially like topic names that tell us what the topic is really about without teasing us. Good luck, and welcome!

And there are usually more WalMarts in any given county than there are EMS agencies. Even if not, there are still a lot more WalMart jobs. And, at least at WalMart you'll be providing a service to the community that people appreciate. I want to start a new thread: 101 Reasons why WalMart is better than EMS

medic895. Posts: 3 Coming soon to a chat room near you. :roll:

Are you the only EMS available on campus, or is there also a city or countywide EMS that covers your campus and surrounding area? Do you cover any off-campus territory? Are you actually EMS, or just first responders? As for this "largest scope of practice," what exactly does that mean? You run your NRBs at 16 lpm instead of 15? Are your educational requirements also the largest in the area, or just the same as everybody else?

Brent, your post pretty well lays out the biggest problem most people have with dispatchers. They are trying to do too many things at once. Between us, the cops, and the firemonkeys, EMS always come last on their list of priorities, as we do in "public safety" in general (which, of course, is why we need to get the hell out of public safety [although the rest of public safety doesn't really consider us a part of them anyhow], but I digress). When you are a "jack of all trades" you are never going to be any good at any one of them, and everybody is going to be disappointed. Being a "public safety" dispatcher is a recipe for failure. Even if you are trained as an EMT, it doesn't really help, because your priorities are still demanded elsewhere. And, of course, EMT certification without experience and education to back it up is worthless. Sometimes it's worse than worthless. It's dangerous to know just enough to get into trouble. Then there are those places where the dispatchers are paramedics who ONLY dispatch EMS, and don't have to split their attention between us and the cops and firemonkeys. It's a little better situation, for sure. But then those guys usually end up copping attitudes because they think their patch makes them as good as the rest of us, and their chair in the air-conditioned office makes them better than the rest of us. Again, this is very definitely going to lead to disharmony. Of course, no matter what kind of system you have, there will always be resentment due to the simple nature of the job. Think about it. Just about every time you call a unit in the field, you are interrupting something. It might be sleep. It might be lunch. It might be a movie. It might just be a good conversation with a partner. Sometimes, it's even interrupting patient care! But it's almost always something. Yes, that is your job, and we know it. But it still begins to piss us off over time. And night dispatchers have it worse than the others, because of this. And yes, I have been a dispatcher. Quite a bit, in fact. Everybody hated me too. That's why I have given so much thought to figuring out why.

LMAO! Just shows to go you... you never know who is here on this forum. Breck, if you intend to apply there, you better go delete anything silly or incriminating you might have ever posted here, before Rid finds it. :wink:

LMAO! This topic is beauty! You have a pretty good point though. Whackerism varies greatly from location to location. There are places where whackerism is extreme -- where full lightbars and magnetic vehicle signs are the norm -- yet they would still call somebody with a badge or a Bat Belt a whacker. Consequently, "whacker" becomes a relative term. Personally, I have a low whacker threshold. I call anybody who uses the Star Of Life for any reason, other than to wipe their arse with, a whacker. Texas is relatively whacker-friendly, with laws, regulations, and low training requirements, and an excess of EMT schools that facilitate whackerism. However, I wouldn't say that Texas really encourages whackerism. Volunteerism (which is frequently synonymous with whackerism) is not rampant, and does not commonly exist in urban or suburban areas, save for a few exceptions. Volunteers aren't bestowed with that "uber citizen" status in Texas that they enjoy in the northeast. Most regular people view them with more of a stigma than with admiration. And there are many more paid jobs in Texas than volunteer positions. You'd definitely have to go farther north, and a lot farther east, to find Whacker Mecca.

Welcome aboard. Sounds like this would be a good time for you to read this topic to learn what you are getting yourself into. It's also a good time to step back and take a good look at the layout of the forums to see where everything is, so you can navigate comfortably. Specifically, you might have ovelooked this forum. :wink: Good luck! Where you from?

Good topic, B13. This is indeed a blight on our field that nobody seems to be seriously addressing. And there is no prospect of things ever getting any better. They COULD get better! Unfortunately, until this job grows into a profession, they won't. The roots of this problem start in EMT school, before you ever see your first patient. Did anybody here actually get any lecture or training in EMT or Paramedic school about non-emergency patient transfers? Nope. They spent several hours talking to you about duplex repeater radio systems and other such useless nonsense, but not one word about what would make up fifty-to one hundred percent of your patient population. They spent 150 hours blowing smoke up your arse about what a hero livesaver you were going to be in four weeks, leading you to believe that you were going to be using these magical, awesome skillz of medicine on all of your patients, while completely ignoring the two most important skils you would need: communications and hand-holding. They never even bothered to show you how to properly make up a cot, something you actually use on EVERY run. So, you leave this class with "hero" stamped on your forehead (until you can save enough money to buy a badge from Galls), and quickly realise that there are no hero jobs out there to even be had. Just taxi driver jobs that require an EMT card. Even if you are lucky enough to find a real 911 EMS job, more than three-quarters of your patients still require nothing but communications and handholding, and of course, a ride to the hospital. You've been lied to, and now you're pissed off. Now your attitude goes to shit, and people act surprised. Imagine that. This is really easy enough to stop. We can stop it today. Step 1: No more EMTs working on horizontal taxis means no more disappointed, wannabe heroes. There is no need for that. Government agencies shouldn't be requiring it. A taxi is a taxi. Let the Africans and the Pakistanis run the horizontal taxis, just like they run all the other taxis, no EMT training required. Step 2: Stop educating technicians and start educating professionals. When you spend 150 hours (being generous, of course) teaching somebody nothing more than some advanced first aid, you're not educating them. You're just training them for some worst case scenarios, and then sending them out with the mistaken idea that they will actually need them with some regularity, and worse yet, that those skills are actually worth something. With a real education, you accomplish two important things. First, you send people out with a more honest idea of what their profession is all about. No getting out into the field to burn out after realising that all your training was BS. And second, you weed out all the immature thrillseekers who only entered the field because they thought a four-week first aid course was their ticket to excitement and glory without any serious commitment. Will people still burn out? Sure. Doctors and nurses still burn out. But at least we will no longer be setting people up for burnout from day 1, greatly reducing the frequency with which we see the attitudes that B13 describes.

Sounds more like duplicating the efforts that others are already doing than setting us apart from the rest. In order to set ourselves apart as a profession, narrow minded is the ONLY thing we can be. I prefer to call it focused. Broad-mindedness like you suggest, is a lack of focus that only perpetuates the idea that we are just somebody else's bastard step-child, and that anybody else could easily do our job just as well as we can. And Nifty's failure to grasp what is really such a simple concept is in itself very narrow minded. The difference between you and me, Nifty...? You want a cool job for yourself. I want a secure profession for all of us.