Dustdevil

Waste of time. Waste of money. Completely without redeeming merit. They spend more time debating special licence plates and the official Class A uniform for the president than they spend on issues that affect the future of the profession. They've been stuck in the "good ol' boys club" mode since the late 1980s and have absolutely no hope of ever pulling out of it. In order to boost their membership, they cater to the firemonkey and volunteer crowd instead of focusing on the future of the PROFESSION. This dilutes their efforts and lowers their expectations to the lowest common denominator. Any organisation that encourages either of those two entities is an organisation that is not working in our best interests, and an organisation I cannot support. I have no use for them.

Wow! Now if they just start providing ALS, they can join the 20th century, albeit 35 years late.

Yep. I nailed that one in my first post. I've seen that attitude a million times, and they're all the same. It goes back to two problems. First, and foremost, EMT schools blow a tonne of smoke up student's arses, leading them to believe they are going to be hero lifesavers in 120 hours. They set them up for disappointment with that big lie, because as we all know, the great majority of them will never do any of that glorious stuff they thought they were signing up for. It should surprise nobody that they get a bad attitude after being lied to. And second of all, anytime you set the bar as low as 120 hours, you're just asking for the majority of your applicants to be total losers who are looking only for a quick way to glory, and not a serious committment to a profession. Get used to this guy. You will see a lot more of him and his ilk.

I dunno about that. Even if that is the case with their policy, I still think they are wide open for criticism. Whether or not they were right or wrong to stop is not the only debate here. There is also the little matter of them being wankers for playing along with this "hero" nonsense. After all, if all they were doing was blindly following policy, that makes them even less heroes than if they had broken policy to do it.

LOL! I'm sure I am misunderstanding that statement, but it strikes me as funny. They didn't have regulations against drunk driving before the accident? And the state law didn't stop him from driving drunk, but this new departmental regulation will? Heck, you could establish a "no alcohol use at any time by any member" policy, along with random breath-alcohol testing, and still end up with drunks behind the wheel. There are more people to blame for that guys crash than just him alone. His partners should have noticed the problem and refused to respond with him, as well as calling the police.

If only it were that simplistic. The reality is that, these days the lines are blurred. This isn't the "Paramedics Only" forum. This is the ALS forum. Paramedics are BLS providers just as EMT-Bs are ALS providers. Consequently, half the answers you receive here are from EMTs, and half the answers you would have received in the BLS forum would have been from Paramedics. And, of course, you are talking about transportation. ALS is a level of care. Care and transportation are not the same thing. That's why the book is called "Care and Transportation of the Sick and Injured." To address your [inappropriately placed] question, I would agree with your belief that running hot to your patient, and then transporting much more judiciously is the prudent way to go. This nonsense of lay idiots with flip charts attempting to assess and prioritise patient conditions by telephone is simply ludicrous. Less than half of the time is their assessment anywhere near accurate. Arm pain and toothache turns into AMI. Full arrest turns into fainting. Headache turns into sepsis. Seizure turns into shivering. Passing judgment on a patient's condition before they have been properly assessed is just bad policy. On the other hand, in most systems, there is simply way too much hot running to the hospital. These guys are running on emotion, adrenaline, whackerism and insecurity. There is a tendency to run hot with any patient whom you have run out of options for, even if their condition is not critical. They do it because they lack the education to properly assess their patient's condition and needs. They do it because they lack the medical sophistication to provide for those needs. They do it because they are emotionally out of control. They do it simply because everybody else does it. They do it because it's fun. They do it because they can. A very wise man once said here on EMT City that a good first step towards improving the quality of people attracted to EMS would be to remove the lights and sirens from our vehicles. That was an excellent point, and I believe a very valid point. I would be interested in seeing a statistical analysis of "Code 3" transport collisions to see what percentage were Basic units and what percentage were Paramedic units. I theorise that this occurs much, much more frequently with Basic units. And if this is so, it is a very significant argument against BLS systems.

Minus 5 for posting in an inappropriate forum.

Triage tags. Legal pads. Three inch tape. :roll: This is the twenty-first century, guys. Get with the programme. Go big or go home. That's why I record all my patient information on a microchip that I then implant in the patient by anal probe. And, of course, if your agency doesn't carry anal probes, your agency sucks!

Chest pain after having CPR done on you? Who'd a thunk it? :roll: Nitro ain't a gonna cure that!

Seriously. Whoever wrote that policy should be fired. Obviously, their ability to think rationally and intelligently is suspect, as should be any other policies or decisions they have maded during their tenure. Kat, you're working for idiots.

What exactly is an ALS fire? Is that like a fire that needs more than a fire extinguisher? Maybe a second alarm?

That leaves out the most common cause: The inability to take a proper blood pressure reading. :wink:

Definitely. I mean really, who here didn't know that the next question was going to be, "but what can they do?" Somebody find the "Oh geeze, not this shit again!" picture for us. I'm on a borrowed computer.

Very true. Sounds like you have enough stupidity of your own to lose your cert and your job without their help. What makes you think your boss was wrong and you were right? Are you some kind of EMS legal genius wasting your talents working a dialysis transfer truck? Please point us to what educational source makes you so certain that you know better than your boss. because I think we're all looking for such an indisputable source as you seem to have, that we would actually defy our bosses over. Did you have the guts to tell him that to his face? Or are you just going to silently tell yourself that you're smarter than him and do whatever you want in the future, regardless of what your employer tells you?

A lot of the problem here is that EMS in NY just plain sucks. They're twenty years behind the rest of the country (which is twenty years behind the rest of the world), and they don't even know it. Consequently, they don't know what they don't know. The rest of the country figured this all out two decades ago, but they're still blissfully ignorant of it in NYS.

Here's some questions for you to think about as you put this plan together. Mind you, I'm not expecting you to post answers to these, because I don't think any of us are in a position to give you any money, lol. But these are things to consider, because these are questions any sane investor will ask you. And how much more are you going to be making as a medic? Show us some math. Show us that this is a sound financial investment with a real potential for payback, and not just something you wanna do cuz it's cool. I think I'd leave that part out of your proposal. It might not be interpreted well by most. Thirty Gs and you still haven't managed an education that pays the bills? Why not? Bad choices? Bad priorities? Bad student? Poor planning? Poor attention span? How is my $8k investment going to change all that? Financial difficulties are about more than money. It's about the ability to handle money competently. Look at those two losers in Reno who blew $50k and starved their children. You have to show a responsible plan to get somebody to foot your bills. So what is that plan? Keep working for the same private company for $11 dollars an hour after $8k of paramedic school? Are you hanging all your eggs in the FD basket? By whom? For what?

Dude! I am suing the bastard for plagiarism! He totally ripped that off from my autobiography!

You'd think that people would have learned by now that, when Whit and I agree on an issue, there is nothing else to be said about that issue. It is settled.

I recommend waiting until he's right up on your arse -- as you know he will be -- then slamming on your brakes and watching him eat the big one. That'll teach 'em. Never stop. It sets a bad precedent.

Somebody forgot to tell the PR broad that. :roll: She kind of jumped the gun with her hyped "New Drug-Dispensing Gun Saves Lives" headline, considering it doesn't even exist yet. But EMS loves hype. I'm sure there's a long list of fire chiefs already chomping at the bit to buy these worthless things. I don't see how this is supposed to decrease med errors. It's only going to keep people from being able to cover them up, since it will be recorded.

Almost every system and community has those standards. Although: 1. I've never seen them go after individual drivers over extended RTs. They go after the system administrator who is failing to provide proper coverage. 2. There is no scientific evidence to support those time standards. They are just randomly pulled out of somebody's arse. So again, I don't see how this applies to me, Joe Driver.

:laughing3:

Wrong. We do have the complete story. They were loaded and they stopped. End of story. Unless the street was completely blocked and they had no ability to turn around (like in your hallucination), then anything else you add to the scenario is irrelevant. They, or FDNY, or both, were wrong. To answer your question, every agency I have worked for in the last 25 years had a written policy forbidding stopping when loaded or responding to another run. And, of course, if your agency does not, your agency sucks. And learn to edit your replies. I know you are overly impressed with your own posts, but quit requoting them everytime you post another reply. They were annoying enough the first time.

Exactly. Except for those occasions where you have a driver that simply doesn't know his way around, long response times are a system failure, not a failure of the driver to drive fast enough. In fact, I've never ever worked anywhere that they would suggest people need to drive faster under any circumstances. That would be legal suicide. If you are working in such a system, it goes without saying that your system sucks.

Is "prounouncement of death" and the termination of resuscitation synonymous in NJ? It isn't in most states. Pronouncement and the decision to withold or cease resuscitation are usually separate issues addressed by separate laws and policies.