Dustdevil

Not allowed by whom? :? Some powers can be fought, and fought successfully. Others cannot, and must be tricked into destroying themselves. Know your enemy. Once you have assessed the opposition, devise a plan of attack. Obviously, nobody else around you cares enough to do anything about it. That puts the ball in your court. Get your ducks in a row. Let the citizens know what they are getting, as compared to what is provided in comparable communities across the country. My bet is that they simply don't know that they are thirty years behind the times. As long as they see shiny new ambos screaming down the road, they figure they have what everybody else they see on TV has. Stir the pot. But do it as an educated and concerned citizen, not as a disgruntled EMT. Remember, you are a citizen of the community first, and an EMT last. Of course, you'll get fired for all this, and then you can really be disgruntled. And you can thank me. Best of luck!

I wasn't going to mention it, but since you ask, yes... I think it's kinda weird that you would post this in the "BLS Care" forum. :?

Risk Takers? Sounds like the only thing those idiots are risking is their licences. :roll: I wonder if their department got any rights of review and editing on that footage? If so, and if they actually let that crap go on air, that pretty well tells you about that department. As it is, we already know about their medics.

Isn't that a euphemism for EMS in general? 8)

Well, medicine if that is your only passion. Sure, nursing, respiratory therapy, surgical technology, or any one of several other disciplnes that wouldn't take long to finish, since you already have all the prerequisites. You're in a position to study those just part time, since you have a foundation already. But you can take it in other directions too. Occupational Safety & Health is an extremely marketable degree or certification. Heck, if you already have a paramedic degree, then just some certifications in OS&H would get you a very well paying and interesting position in industry. Although less marketable, there is also Emergency Management which has a lot of possibilities. Or maybe just a business or public administration degree, where you could take your experience and put it to use in management. Trust me, the reason medics make crap wages is because their managers are getting overpaid! Get some of that action! It's a question we all have to face sooner or later, and there is no easy answer. Sure, ideally this should all be part of our master plan right out of high school, but lets face it... retirement sneaks up on you quickly after thirty years of living for today. Kudos for giving it early thought. Best of luck!

I think it is interesting that, when he asks about "rare conditions," we automatically skip to those conditions from the very back of the internal medicine book that we can hardly spell, much less describe. Zebras live much closer to us than we think! I would say that a good half of the things we learn about in EMT and medic school are extremely rare. Not "rare" in how often they occur, but rare in how often we actually deal with them in EMS. I doubt that I would run out of fingers if I counted the number of times I did bandaging and splinting on a patient in my first couple of years of practice. Traction splints? Ha! Anybody who took that hard of a hit was on the road quickly, without time for a traction splint. How about anything to do with obstetrics? Sure, women are delivering every minute of the day, but we rarely see them. Most of them know when it is time to get their arses to the hospital ahead of time. Delivery in itself is rare enough, much less things like cord prolapse, uterine prolapse, and limb presentation. Organophosphate poisoning? Puhleeze. Choking on food? Never seen a single one in well over thirty years of practice. And how about people who are revived by cardiopulmonary resuscitation? Now THERE is a rare condition if I ever saw one. So, if you think about it, some of the more rare conditions are the ones we actually spend the most time training for. Yes, I know there is a good reason for that, but that is my point. I think what AZCEP was trying to say was that zebras live right here amongst us. We don't have to go searching for them in Africa. Worry about the ones that are our neighbours first.

:shock:

LOL!! Yeah, I think I'd like to hear the rationale behind that one too! :munky2:

I think they are halfway there. I'm leaning towards a little "decompression" of sorts, but not pleural. :wink:

Riverside County is well worth the drive. The women is hott there! 8)

There is a reason that many medics working ER are working "way below their training." It is because most of them have been working way above their education for so many years that they would be even more dangerous in the ER. If you're serious about medicine, why not go back to school in preparation for the day you need to move out of the trenches? That would be the intelligent choice. It would help you in the future, it would help you in your current practice, and it will help you to see and experience other arenas and network with people in them, giving you a leg up on the future. Beyond that, there are a lot of industrial jobs for medics, where they will cross train you into Safety Administration as well, which pays a lot better than EMS ever will. Not to mention the straight medic jobs available in the industrial sector, which usually pay pretty good. When it comes down to it though, there really aren't a lot of great options out there without going back to school. This has been discussed in a couple of different topics in the "Off The Road" forum down below. You might check it out there for more ideas. Good luck.

Well done, Josie! I wish you were coming a little farther west so we could team up. Best of luck!

Way to go! I knew you'd be at the top of the heap! Whoever you go to work for will be lucky to have you!

Mind you, I am not saying that is what happened with your patient, as I simply do not have sufficient information to say that. However, it is certainly possible that you stimulated spontaneous respirations (although, that sounds like an oxymoronic concept) with your bagging. I suspect that the same basic mechanism that allows us to manually stimulate respirations in the newborn continues to exist throughout the lifetime, and occasionally comes in quite handy. There are other possibilities though. Regardless, I think you acted entirely appropriately. Good job.

Plus 5! :thumbright:

And... minus yet ANOTHER 5 for using local codes that most people don't use. :? What are our choices? Are you asking for another one of your "codes," or an actual description? Put me down for "currently stable, but potentially life threatening." I'm not driving like an arse with lights and sirens, if that is what you are asking. The difference between 20 and 22 minutes is not worth risking anybody's life over.

Excellent. He can get everybody except p3medic and I out of the room STAT. This chick is fixin' to get nekkid! 8)

Are the police there? I'm no longer amused by the presence of this "nurse." Nor the principal either.

Can you really drive anywhere in LA County in quicker than one hour? :?

LMAO!!! Isn't her naivete cute? The pants with the maternity panel in them is a good idea. Unless they are an absolute requirement by your employer, why not just dump the EMS pants and get maternity pants that match? Those wanker pockets are silly anyhow. Have you asked if you would be allowed any variations? Most employers do. Even the military does. I doubt they will require tucked shirts, so long as you get the tails hemmed, which is standard for maternity shirts. I can't honestly say I have ever worked EMS with a partner who was so pregnant that she was into maternity clothes. They usually find a reason to fire you before you get to that point.

Really? You must be in a pretty urban setting for Alaska then. I've seen Lasix work miracles in rural settings with extended transport times.

Or at age 16 she has been smoking and taking OCs for five years already, and she just tossed a PE.

Whatever it is, he sure likes it. He's used it in both scenarios. I'm not so sure that DIB is synonymous with SOA (whatever that is) or SOB though. In this scenario, he says... This leads me to be that DIB has something to do with the pain, since the pain was not mentioned previously in the scenario. Either way, it is keeping me from getting into either scenario when I can't get past the first symptom. :? BTW, Speedy, I never heard of "b4" before either. 8)