Dustdevil

Yeah, I realised that after the editing time limit. :oops: Sorry about that. I got this topic confused with the other pain control topic, below.

Jan, there are a BUNCH of topics covering this, laying out the process and prospects for almost every province, but especially AB and ON. The bottom line is, no matter where you go, you're pretty much back to square one, starting all over with your education. The exceptions would be degreed medics with a tonne of experience, who would still probably start out as a PCP, and even then only after some retraining and a test they'll try more than once to pass.

In my personal experience, definitely. I couldn't begin to count the number of times I have gotten on a scene and had to disregard the helo that the excited firemonkeys called before my arrival just because they saw a little blood, heard a little screaming, or worse yet, got all hung up on their silly MOI protocol. Victims standing on the side of the road, smoking a fag, not a scratch upon them, but their car was overturned so the firemomkeys are yelling "GET ME TWO CAREFLITES!" :roll: Not to mention all the patients like the one in this scenario who got helos called just because some over-his-head rookie freaked out. And, of course, those who call a helo just because they think it is something cool to brag to their loser buddies about. Had that helo actually made that scene with me being the senior medic, I would have looked like a complete idiot. I am quite capable of making an idiot of myself without the help of a bunch of rookie firemonkeys.

I prefer anal. And, of course, tis more blessed to give than to receive. :twisted:

Sounds sort of pointless to me. I can't see that many people here being interested in a debate just to determine who the second and third smartest people here are.

My point is -- and no offence intended to 1EMT-P, whom I like -- is that I am tired of all the, "Well, my instructor says this..." and "our protocols say that..." we read around here. I want to know what my fellow professionals think, not what their protocols or teachers said. If I cared about any of that crap, I'd just pick up the Brady book everyday instead of coming to EMT City and sharing ideas with my peers.

I'm not nearly as interested in what you were taught as I am in what you personally think and why. If all we ever did was quote our protocols around here, this forum would be useless.

Well, at least this statement suggests that you don't watch much television, which I suppose is a good thing. Won't make a bit of difference in your application. I promise you. Not trying to discourage you from doing it. Just letting you know, it will have zero impact on your career as a federal agent. It's a three week first aid course, for crying out loud. Why the hell would the federal government be all excited about you having already taken it? It is painfully apparent that you have a completely unrealistic view of EMT training and of federal law enforcement. Because you're a perfectionist! You won't be satisfied with this hole you are digging until it reaches China.

You can save all the dramatics after the blood draw. That's about the point your patient died. :?

Okay, so where is YOUR scientific evidence that any of those 96 percent actually survived because of the helicopter ride? Hell, I've never had a patient die on me in a basic transfer ambulance. Maybe we should let basic transfer ambulances run all EMS.

In most cases, I'd say it is worth the $10 bucks to order the guy a Domino's and a Pepsi in return for his signature on the no-ride form. That way I can get back to the station in time for Turd Watch!

I wish I had money for every inexperienced Basic I ever warned not to do this, who later ended up having a horrible experience. If you do this, I'm warning you, you are going to be very, very tempted to exceed your practical limits and the limits of your education. Not only tempted, but expected. If you don't, they'll think you are worthless (which you probably are), and if you do, there is a very high probability that you will screw up and end up with a nightmare of a memory, if not worse. Maybe one in fifty patients you see will have an injury or complaint that was actually covered in EMT school. The rest will be things you were never trained to deal with on any level, except to transport them. And many of these camps have a caniptian fit if you call an ambulance or transport for anything that isn't immediately life threatening. And, of course, there will be other people on the camp who are higher educated than you, and they will know that you are out of your league. You would be amazed how many Assistant Scout Masters and dads are paramedics and physicians, and you'll never know who they are. The good news is that it is a lot easier gig at a Boy Scout camp than at a predominantly girls camp or heavily mixed camp. Scout troops are pretty self-sufficient units. They take care of business in their own unit and don't go to the clinic a lot. At non-scout camps, you don't have so many people with first aid skills, so you are a lot busier in the clinic. And, of course, girls just go to the clinic a lot more than boys in general. I've worked Boy Scout camps where there were a thousand boys and maybe 5 or 6 girls and women in residence (usually wives and sisters who live there to work the summer), and each day my FAR will consistently show more girls names than boys names. It's amazing. You're genuinely appreciated by most of the staff at Boy Scout camps. Many go out of their way to welcome you and make you feel a part of the big picture, instead of isolating you in that lonely little building on the hill. You build a comeraderie and friendship with people that you will remember for a lifetime. But there seems to always be one or two people on staff who have a problem with you for some reason, will try and tell you how to do your job, and will be constantly complaining about you. And sometimes, they win. Politics fester when you are secluded for three months, and sometimes it turns into a whole "Lord Of The Flies" thing. The one thing I cannot overemphasise is that, as an EMT-B, you simply aren't trained, educated, or experienced in the illnesses and injuries you will be expected to deal with. Not in the least. And you can't be a protocol monkey out there and expect to get by either. If you go transporting every abdominal pain that walks in the door everymorning, they'll have your arse out of there quickly. Conversely, if you sit on an appendicitis, or a sore throat that turns out to be a communicable disease, you just bought the Council a lawsuit and probably lost your certification forever. You can bet the Council will say the buck stops with you. So, how do you know the difference? You don't, and that is my point. Best of luck to all who work the camps. You are definitely needed. But really, they need you AND so much more.

Pretty much. You gave us no reasoning with your answer, which wasn't really a committed answer anyhow, which comes across looking like you gave us a cookbook answer instead of an actual solution that you reasoned out in your head, using the information provided. But, if you are convinced that you "know enough" about respiratory and airway management, I'll give you a chance to prove me wrong. Give us the medical rationale for your "short message." If you really know "enough," proudly show us. If you don't, well at least spend a couple of hours looking it all up, then come back and BS us into believing you know enough. Either way, I'll be proud of you. But I'd also be proud of you for just admitting you don't know "enough," but you would like to. Not sure what you are getting at here. Are you saying that "thinking" you know enough is good enough? That it doesn't matter if you really do know enough, so long as you think you know enough? :? If all you know is flowcharts and cookbook recipes, then you are very, very far from knowing "enough." Most patients, including this one, don't fall into those neat little protocols you learned in EMT school. Consequently, you are left having to think them through and come to an educated decision about their problem and their needs that doesn't involve the regurgitation of protocols.

Unfortunately, this seems to happen all too often. And sadly, it is a reflection of the quality of people in the field. The nimrods checking you off have no more training than you do. And their expriences bring bias to the process. Not to mention, they have usually been doing this long enough that they are bored by the process and do not devote the attention they should to it. First time I ever took NR, I had already been in the field for over a decade. Needless to say, I knew what I was doing. I still failed three stations. The megacode examiner stood there and carried on a personal conversation with some chick throughout the whole examination, only stopping to occasionally look at me and change the rhythm. Yet he failed me, saying I had not said "clear" prior to one of the many shocks I delivered. Like he would have even noticed. :roll: Then there was the idiot with the NY/NJ (same thing) accent who thought I had said "four milligrams" when I had said "a FULL milligram." Yeah, like after a decade of practice I would give an old lady 4 milligrams of atropine. :? And yes, you don't realise these things, that could have been cleared up on the spot, until it is all over and too late. Not a big fan of skills testing for licensure anyhow. No other medical profession does it. And schools should be educating to a standard that ensures competency anyhow. There should be no question when they graduate that they know their skills. I say increase education to assure competency, significantly increase the difficulty of the written exam, and drop the skills exams altogether.

There is no doubt about this, unfortunately. There are exceptions, but they are just that... exceptions. Although, those exceptional employers are probably among the very best to work for. And if working for the best is your goal, then you very definitely have an edge with more education. It is unfortunate, but the pioneers of any struggle are always going to pay a price for the future. That is what those who seek advanced higher education in EMS today are doing. They are raising the bar, slowly but surely, one medic at a time. I know that, at this point, the only thing you get out of it is the satisfaction of knowing that you are better educated and better prepared than the next 180 day wonder medic out of the fly-by-night tech schools out there, who are making the same money as you. But some years down the line, when the next generation has to meet that same standard, we will all owe thanks to you who took the initiative to raise the bar and be the best you could be, without anybody forcing you to.

I suppose that might sound impressive to somebody who has been living in a cave for the last four years, and was unaware that the necessity, utility, and safety of helicopter EMS has been as thoroughly trashed as the so-called "Golden Hour." It's about as meaninful as saying, "Sure, we pay the highest taxes in the country, but we sure have some pretty parks!"

This is not a cut-and-dried issue that can be taught out of the book. This is an issue that will vary greatly from location to location. Ultimately, it is up to your medical control. And if you aren't going to listen to your medical control, then why would you even call them in the first place? That just doesn't make any sense. And, of course, as previously stated, if you choose to defy a physicians order, you indeed best have some better rationale than "it's what my EMT instructor told me." In fact, right off the bat, I can't think of any rationale that will save your job. This is the point that Mike was trying to impress upon you. To be successful as a professional in this job, you have to use your brain as more than a mere recepticle for memorised bits of information, like protocols. You have to use it as a device for analysing those bits of information to reach reasoned conclusions. You have to think for yourself. And this is what we mean when we talk about the differences between training and education. EMT school (and far too many paramedic schools too) trains you to act upon specific criteria with specific actions in a flow-chart, cookbook fashion without the need for intelligent reasoning. Education lays a foundation of knowledge and information for you, then exercises your ability to put all that information together and use critical thinking skills to come up with a logical solution that considers all the facts pertinent to your specific patient, not just those in the cookbook. If you stop posting, you stop challenging yourself. If you stop laying your knowledge out there for review and critique, you are doomed to professional stagnation. And remember, every mistake you make on this forum is one less mistake you will make on a real, live patient. It's worth the occasional humiliation. Especially to your patients.

The people who put four to six years into a university education to earn the initials MT behind their name would not appreciate this presumptive generalisation. I question the accuracy of the information at your link. Although it is possibly accurate somewhere in some state, I have never heard of a CMT, only a CMA, which fits that description. Of course, all of this is irrelevant to the topic at hand, and certainly does not negate the validity of your original point, which was a good one.

Yes, but what is the biner attached to? Your belt? Your belt loop? Currently, I have a miniature carabiner on my belt loop that I put my keys on, but I am afraid that they could certainly catch on something and rip through that little loop pretty easily. A biner over the belt itself is too uncomfortable. I like those little metal key clips that are flat and loop over the belt. Those are very secure, but obviously, I can't find one over here. That's probably the best thing going, although it leaves your keys jingling, which I really don't like either. I'd be interested in hearing other options too.

That ought to almost cover your books each semester. The cost of the actual hours, lab fees, lab supplies, transportation, etc... is up to you. Formal college education is paramount in medicine, and the sooner you get into it, the better. EMT school is just a first aid course, nothing more. It is not medical education. Don't leave there thinking you have achieved anything of significance, much less education. It's been answered multiple times. You already have more than you'll ever need. There is nothing else you need. Did you miss those answers, or are you just waiting to hear the answer you want to hear?

Actually, no. A Med Tech runs medical laboratory tests on human tissue and fluid samples, and interpret and report the results. Although they usually have a much deeper education than nurses, they do not hand out medications.

No offence intended, Speedy, but I believe that you just demonstrated that you actually know very little about airway and breathing on the basic level. I can assure you that there is not the slightest chance in hell that you know "enough" about it on any level. Not knowing enough is not a sin. It can be fixed. But thinking that you do know enough is a very dangerous thing. Close to being a sin.

Indeed. We're proud of you, Brock. That's a tough programme there, and it shows in the numbers. Congratulations and best of luck!

So, Nick, was that tact, sarcasm, or something completely different there? :? How long have you been having these little outbursts? Are you capable of posting without them, or is it a compulsion that you lack the ability to control? Have you thought of getting this checked out by a professional?

Which "skills" would this be testing? :?