Dustdevil

Ooops... sorry I missed that, Michael. You and CB have it correct. Basically, the hosemonkeys spend more time polishing their nozzles than actually squirting water with them. And the price of union firemen has gone up significantly. The powers that be want more bang for their buck than that. Some places, they consider just shutting down firehouses and getting by with less firemen. However, in most places, they can't get by with that because the insurance industry will hit every resident with higher rates, causing a revolt at the polls. Consequently, in order to keep the key inspectors and homeowners (the ones paying the taxes) happy, we have MORE firemen doing LESS firefighting. Personally, I agree: I would like to see them doing more than watching cable TV all day long to earn their above average salaries. But no... making them paramedics is not really a good plan. Having them fill pot-holes, read water meters, clean the parks and cut the grass sounds like a more sensible use of their potential. I have heard the theory of fewer fires because of education and inspection, etc..., but I am not sure I really buy it, as far as being responsible for huge scale reduction in fires. I think it is just a case where we have a lot more firemen on duty because of key rates and other standards. More on duty = more sitting on their arses. "Square wheels" is what we say about those trucks (fire or EMS) that sit idle due to low run volumes.

Interesting that they don't give us the name of this woman. She's not a minor. They give us the name of every other person who attempts murder, so why not her? Anybody know if she's a white girl? If so, that's a damn shame.

I am assuming you mean Kalifornia and not Canada, since no self-respecting Canadian would fail to capitalise "CA." And, of course, there haven't been paramedics in Alberta for "over 30 years." But I would agree with you that Gerry apparently has some issues. It is beyond ignorant to assume that, because you have seen private providers who suck, all private providers suck. That is no more valid than the assumption that, because Detroit FD and LA County FD EMS suck, all public providers suck.

Really? So you are saying you were there and that you have first hand knowledge of the incident in question that we do not have? If so, please share. Otherwise, you're just pulling more nonsense out of your arse for argument's sake. Sounds to me like your priorities are seriously misplaced. Shouldn't you be carrying laryngoscopes, ET tubes, and IV supplies on your Bat Belt instead of pointless crap that you *might possibly* have to use once every six months to fix a light bulb on the truck? What's that you say...? You have all those things in your bag? Bingo. That's our point. Thanks for coming back around to it.

That wasn't "full blown." It was OVERblown. And you're the one who blew it. KMAC, I have worked more real MCIs than you have worked MVAs. And after all that, I still have yet to go home thinking, "wow... I sure wish I had more crap on my belt!"

Ahh... yes, there are a lot of real geniuses in EMS supply these days. Out here, ours come attached in a strip. Only problem is, they are irreversibly hung up on buying the Lifepak brand electrodes that come in strips of THREE, but our monitor has FOUR wires. :roll:

So... six years in the field and you finally needed the stuff on your belt? Wow. Sure is a good thing you carried it all these years. I'm sure the whole MCI would have fallen apart without that second oxygen wrench on your belt. Dozens would have died, without a doubt. I sure hope the Governor personally presents you with a medal for your heroic foresight. All the rest of us losers should take a lesson! Perhaps you have forgotten after 8 pages, but it was YOU who said you didn't like what you were carrying. I bet I carry more weight on my Bat Belt than any of you, yet there are two big differences. First, I don't complain about what I carry. And second, NOTHING on my belt is something that isn't just as well left in my jump bag. Two walkie talkies (Uncle Sam, in his infinite wisdom, decided we needed two different radio systems on the same camp :roll: ), a large pouch with all my injectable narcotics, and a camera. Can't leave those in the bag. Scissors, O[sub:d0cf92509f]2[/sub:d0cf92509f] wrenches, stethoscope, gloves, flux capacitors (hehe, I love it!)... all in the bag. If I have a patient, I have the bag, so there is no need to pack my pockets or belt with redundancy.

Actually, it is having ten years of bad habits to overcome that sucks. That's exactly why so many of us advise n00bs not to screw around for long before getting straight into paramedic school. Being nervous is probably all that kept you from failing more than three stations. Congrats!

Exactly. Doesn't everybody do this? Why would somebody go through all the trouble and effort to reinvent the wheel with nasty, sticky tape when just keeping your leads preattached does the job and saves you TWO steps instead of just one? I am all for finding step and time saving techniques. It shows good thinking. And, as usual, kudos to you for checking here for opinions and options, Fiznat. But I think there are better ways than what you are doing.

Yeah, I'm the same way with rape patients. It's just so hard to keep from busting out laughing.

That's a shame, cuz seriously... who the hell sends personnel into a condemned, structurally unstable, uninhabited building under demolition, to fight a fire? :roll:

I seem to recall that there was a lot of agreement in some of the now-locked "bashing" threads.

You allude to a really good point that I have pondered at length. It's so silly that the EMT curriculum still includes totally useless information about radio repeaters and duplex communications systems, but has nothing about the history of our profession. I think that is sorely needed. People enter this field with absolutely no concept of where we came from, where we have been, how we got there, or that we are still trying to get somewhere else. All they know is the present, and assume that things are as they have always been. Consequently, it is difficult to get them on board with progress. And those who do decide that change is in order don't know enough about what has already been done to put it into perspective. They don't know how the first paramedics and EMTs came about, or why. They don't know how we became associated with the fire service or why. They don't know how much (or more appropriately, how little) we have progressed from those early days or why. Therefore, we hear a lot of ideas being rehashed that have been old news for decades. As was discussed in another thread, medics would also benefit greatly by having a historical understanding of the other allied health professions and how they have handled professional growth. And, as you suggested, an understanding of the history of healthcare in general would give us an extremely useful perspective for planning our own future. I think a nice semester long mandatory course on healthcare history and professional perspectives would be a seriously helpful addition to the EMS curriculum. The first week would be spent watching and discussing "Mother, Juggs & Speed", and episodes of "Emergency!"

LOL! Thanks for breaking it down for us. Sometimes we're a little slow on the uptake, so you can't beat around the bush with subtlety. No, I am definitely not overworked. Underpaid? Definitely! But not overworked.

I LOVED History too! I wish my chem and physics grades had been as good as my History grades, lol! But, as much as I love it, I can't honestly say it was terribly relevant to my medical education. On the other hand, I would never call it a waste of time either though. Although, at my age, I've lived enough history to not really need a course in it.

LOL! Back in the early 80's, some wanker wrote a handbook for volunteer fire chiefs actually advocating that they go EVERYWHERE with their sirens on because hearing them would keep the VFD in the public's mind. Pretty sure he was a New Yorker. :roll:

LOL! Well, if riskynremtp had not given such a good reply in the "failed static cardiology" thread next to this one, I too might suspect his motives. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt on it though. I would like to know what he considers to be "senseless education" though. Other than History, I can't think of a single course in my degree program that was not important to my medical education.

Good advice from riskynremtp. It does indeed sound like the stress of this particular event is possibly as much a factor as your cardiological skills. Regardless, if static cardiology is not second nature to you, you simply are not ready for the streets. Unlike pharmacology, there are no cheat sheets to get you through the sticky situations in the field. You either can read them quickly, under stress, without help, or you can't. And if you can't, then I don't want you wearing the patch. Unfortunately, paramedic licensure doesn't mean you are now ready to go learn. It means you are now ready to go practise on human lives. Alone. Without any help. You need help, so you are not ready. That's not necessarily a bad thing though, so long as you recognise it and do something about it. If you don't already have the Dubin EKG book, go buy it today. Sit down with it for two days straight and work through it cover-to-cover. Do that again the two days before your retest. Not only will you pass the test just fine, you will actually be better at EKGs than most of the medics you work with. But with three fails, don't you have to like do a refresher or something before you retest? I am not sure. I've never heard of anybody failing the same station three times before, so this is new territory for me.

LMAO! Yeah, get you an apron like the grocery clerks wear, and one of those price tag guns. Load it up with pre-printed stickers and walk up and down the aisles tagging your message on all the products in the store. Nobody will suspect a thing! That's genius!

There is another way to look at it. Is it possible that the curriculum and text changes are not so much a "dumbing down" of the course, but maybe a reflection of the changing purpose of the course? In the early days, ACLS was developed as an actual teaching course that took general providers and trained them to handle ACLS care, based on the premise that they already had a medical foundation but lacked an ECC focus. But things have changed in the last thirty years. Physicians are now expected to all be exposed to, and proficient in ECC already, so ACLS has become less of a teaching course and more of a simple protocol review and validation of familiarity with current standards. With that in mind, it does make a certain amount of sense to adjust the curriculum accordingly. Properly educated medics, like physicians, should already know that foundational core of information too. They should not need an ACLS course to teach them anything. Consequently, it makes more sense to focus the course on a full two-days of reviewing protocols and relevant new science than to try and make it a crash course in ECC for the uneducated. Let's face it. A mertit badge is all it is. I don't think it has lost it's meaning or purpose. It is still important to keep people current in their knowledge of current practices. But it's not an educational course, so there's no need in trying to make it into one. That said, I do seriously disagree with what can only be described as a "dumbing down" of the examination process. I mean seriously, with the content being watered down to nothing more than a basic protocol review, the least they could do is make the examination process valid and meaningful.

I think some have forgotten what this post was all about. I'm not so much bashing anybody for carrying a lot of crap. Carry whatever you feel is necessary. But when you come here complaining about it weighing to much -- literally asking us to lighten your load -- then what do you expect? Of course we're going to tell you that it's too much crap. I honestly cannot think of what possible other answers he was expecting. :? This is an epidemic here at EMT City. People come here and openly ask for opinions and advice, then they get all bent out of shape when they get it. So then they cop an attitude about it, and those who offered the advice take offence to the attitude, and you end up with what we have here. Hey, kudos to anybody who comes here and lays it all out there for us to consume and critique. That takes a certain amount of guts in itself. But geeze... communications is a two-way street, kids! This is a forum for intelligent snf productive discussion, not a pep-rally for cheerleaders to pat each other on the back for being an EMT. Anybody that can't take the comparatively mild heat of this forum is simply not going to make it as a good medic. As for the three terror attacks, I think that just proves my point. You're obviously not as popular as you think you are in NYC. :wink:

You'll notice that he is very specifically addressing Lead II only. If all you are doing is monitoring a rhythm strip, then torso placement is fine. And it does cut down on artifact. But for a diagnostic and/or 12 lead tracing, it is extremely important that the LIMBS be used. It makes a significant difference. You can literally miss an MI by improper placement, so don't ever half-arse it. I encourage you to test this out for yourself. On the next few patients you have where you have the luxury of time, try it both ways. Run your diagnostic on the Limbs. Then, during transport maybe, run it again with the limb leads on the torso. Compare the two tracings and you should see a difference, usually a significant one. And it doesn't take much difference to change your diagnosis. There ya go, Anthony. Now you know more than probably seventy-five percent of the medics in LA County. :wink:

Good call, Crawler. This is very reminiscent of the recent dubious "study" by Paul Pepe and a bunch of other losers contending that the fire service is the best choice for the provision of EMS. There wasn't a single valid point in the entire paper, but I'm sure it sounded quite impressive to the average guy on the street.

Vent, it is interesting and significant that you should speak on this topic. I don't know how long you have been in RT, but certainly know the history of RTs struggle for professional status. It started about fifteen years before EMS, but they transformed the field into a full-fledged profession, with significant educational standards and commensurate rewards in under 25 years, from birth to maturity. EMS has been at this for thirty five years now and they still don't even know what their goal is. Other than "more money," most seem to believe that EMS doesn't even need any more growth, and is fine just as it is. We're stuck nowhere, and going nowhere. There is always talk of who we should emulate. We hear people constantly telling us we should be like the firemonkeys and other so-called "public safety" workers. Then there are those who insist we should be like the nurses. I believe that, if there is any profession we could take serious lessons in professional development from, it is the Respiratory Therapists. Having been in the RT profession in the early days of the struggle, I am amazed at how far they have come in the last 25 years. I think one of the most telling signs of the seriousness with which they take their mission to professionalise the field is the fact that they shut down the one distance-learning institution that provided certifications, ensuring that all candidates received a more intense and formal education. Can you imagine the cacophony of bitching that would elicit in EMS? It would never happen. One major problem -- among the many -- that EMS suffers in our current struggle for professionalism is that nobody sees any role models for us that are really analogous. It seems that most of those trying to guide our future think they have all the answers and don't need to learn anything from anybody else. Unless somebody with both vision and the intelligence to know the importance of alliances comes along to take the lead, our struggle will continue to be nothing more than bald tires spinning in the mud. It would behove the people at NAEMT to quit spending their time and money sucking up to the firemonkeys and sit down with the leaders -- past and present -- at the NBRC and take notes.