Dustdevil

And then there is rule number 1 in EMS: He who gets his story in first, wins. It doesn't matter who was actually right or wrong. If you are the first one to go to the supervisor, then YOU were right. If your partner gets there before you, then HE was right and you were wrong. After all, if you were right, why did you not immediately go to the supervisor? Yeah, I know it's idiotic logic, but that's how it works in EMS. SOMEDIC is right. The only way to win this crap is to be a ruthless arsehole and be the first to run to the supervisor with ANY irregularity you encounter.

You could see yourself there in four years if you put your mind to it. This EMT nonsense is only going to slow you down and cost you a lot of money. And if you aren't ready to give it one-hundred percent, then you should admit to yourself right now that it isn't for you and move on before you waste anymore of your life. And our time.

That is unfortunate only if you make it so. You get electives. Make one of them Microbiology. As daunting as it sounds, it's a lot easier than Chemistry, and a lot more useful to you in EMS too. Kudos to you for that! You have my respect. Meh... I am not really so sure it will put you ahead of the game. You won't graduate any faster. You won't be practising any faster. And you'll still come out of school knowing the same amount as the rest of the people in your class. I honestly don't see this as something that will do you any good in the long run, and I see how it can be harmful to your educational efforts. Pharm is something you have to learn methodically, from a scientific perspective. Simply learning that Inderal is a beta blocker that will slow the heart rate is not particularly helpful to you if you don't understand the physiologicall method of action of beta blockers. And when you are taught pharm in school, you will learn it in that sequence. Memorising random facts off of drug cards or pocket guides just doesn't give you anything of value ahead of time. I am not against getting a head-start on education, by any means. I just am against anything that impedes your education, or simply does not contribute to it. You are definitely on the right track by desiring to study the medical portion of medic education, as opposed to wanting to learn IVs and intubation ahead of time. But drugs are not a good choice. If you want to get ahead, I have to say that you would be MUCH better off getting yourself a copy of Dale Dubin's "Rapid Interpretation of EKGs" and studying that. That book TEACHES you EKG interpretation in a methodical, scientifically sound manner, from the ground up. And that is the hardest part of medic school. If you want to learn something that will put you ahead, that is the way to go. You'll be able to kick back and relax through the hardest part of medic school after spending a few weeks with that book. On the other hand, if you spend the next year studying a drug guide, it is not going to make any part of medic school easier for you. And you can start using your EKG knowledge immediately as a basic. You can't do anything with any knowledge you might memorise about drugs except piss off your partners. EKG interpretation is simply part of patient assessment. And patient assessment is always a great choice of topics to devote extra attention to, at any level of certification. Good luck!

Awesome job, right there! Sounded like a half-hour job to me, at the very least! There are few things nearly as frustrating (and stress inducing) as having to sit there and do nothing but hold c-spine because of access problems (or because your partner got lost while retrieving equipment for you :roll: ). The seconds seem like hours. The good news is, your next few shifts will (hopefully) seem totally uneventful to you after this one. Life has a way of evening things out!

So how is that a "means to an end?" It certainly isn't a prerequisite to PA school. Are you actually gainfully employed in EMS? If so, then I suppose it is indeed a "means to an end" just like working at Mc Donalds would be a means to an end. Otherwise, it's neither a means to an end nor a career. It's just a hobby. And quite frankly, I find your disrespect of my profession to be demeaning. I can't believe somebody actuallyl called PHTLS a "BIG" certification. Dude... it's a weekend long course! This is why EMS is a joke in the United States! People spend a weekend on a simple skills course, and you'd think they just earned a Master's Degree. Yet, ask them to go get an actual education and all they do is make excuses and whine about it.

But it does still make you a whacker. But if 120 hours of night school is the biggest thing you have to be proud of in your life, then you have bigger problems than being a whacker, I suppose.

Have you taken Anatomy & Physiology I and II, Microbiology, and Chemistry I yet? That's all the preparation you need for Paramedic or nursing level pharmacology. Good luck!

I got two 18 gauges started on me the first week of October and I STILL have the scars. I never knew the damn things lasted this long! :shock:

Dude, Zoster on the nose is bad news! Half of those get sent for an opthamology consult. The ones that get correctly diagnosed, that is. :? I treat several Zoster patients a month, and they are the one patient I never can get adequate pain control in without totally gorking them. Anyhow, this is yet another topic that only proves that college level microbiology should be a prerequisite for every level of EMS education.

Good luck getting any of the PA medics here to admit they are wackers!

We practised each skill (IV, IM, SC) one time on a partner in class. The rest was all in clinical rotations. Our first clinical rotation in paramedic school was at the outpatient lab in the county hospital. After one day, you very definitely had a good grasp on the skill of venipuncture. There is at least one school around here that has the students sink NGs on each other. Glad I didn't go there! :shock:

I feel your pain. I once ran on an MVA where some broad drove her car off the side of the road and over the edge of a 25 foot sheer drop off. The vehicle landed upside down on the train tracks, with her pinned inside. She wasn't "critical" per se, but she had multiple trauma, including a head injury. I called a helicopter, even though we were only a few miles from a trauma centre. The supervisor had a fit and drove to the scene, lights and siren, to ream me out for calling a helicopter for an in-town incident. After the patient was loaded and flying out, the supervisor proceeded to raise hell about my calling the helicopter in the first place, since we were so close to the hospital. After he was through, I calmly asked him how he would have gotten her out of there. Finally he turns and looks around himself and realises that we are in a 25 foot deep hole with absolutely no access by ground, except for trains. Then he stammers and mumbles for a bit about how he has write this up to be sure that people are not using helicopters inappropriately. Some people are just idiots. And no, it didn't get written up.

How expensive are SAMs in Oz? :? I think they are $10 in the US, give or take a couple of bucks. About the same as a good c-collar, or less. Doesn't seem that expensive to me, unless you are just saying they are expensive in comparison to a fifty-cent piece of cardboard. I love SAM splints! I use the heck out of them. Some Army medical unit moved out of here a few weeks ago and tossed all of their unused equipment and supplies into the dump. Some scrounger found it all, put it in the back of a pickup truck, and drove it over to my clinic. There were about 6 cases of unopened SAM splints in there. Now, mind you, I'll never use that many SAM splints, even if the war lasts another ten years! But I hate to see them go to waste either! But yeah, between SAM splints, pillows and blankets, I can splint most everything. I wish that guy with the pickup truck would come back and haul my vacuum splints off to the dump.

I'm with you on this one. Better on the arms than on the shirt. I am always disgusted when I get undressed at the end of a shift and find a big bloody patch on my skin that I didn't know about because it was on dark clothing. And I still carry a spare uniform on the ambo with me, just in case.

Ah, I think I get the picture now. From the first post, I was imagining him being an overbearing jerk, thinking his month of experience made him somehow better than you. Apparently, he's just an immature n00b who needs some Ritalin. This sort of reminds me of the situation where some idiot is riding your arse on the freeway. The way to handle that is to take your foot off of the accelerator and slow down, forcing him to do the same. The same advice could apply here. If you make your actions more deliberately paced, your partner will be forced to pay more attention to what you are doing. The result is, you are passively taking the lead and he now has to pay attention and follow. This, of course, will only work if you stick with it and don't give in to his impatience. Obviously, one of you must change. However, only one of you actually needs to change, and it isn't you.

Soooo.... how do you remember your vital signs until it is time to do your electronic PCR? Even if a system utilises EPCRs, the same dilemma exists. You still have to write sometimes. And then there is the matter of disinfecting the tablet or computer. How often do you disinfect the keyboard on the computer at the station? You say it's not in the ambulance, so it doesn't matter? Think again. How anal are the other people who use that computer about washing their hands? Would you bet your life on it? That is the big problem with gloves. It makes people feel like they don't have to wash their hands as often. Or at all. Another cut and dried argument for mandatory microbiology prerequisites for EMT and Paramedic school.

I agree. I find no fault with your decision. Sounds like you work with many idiot protocol monkeys who lack the ability to think independently and outside of the box to intelligently evaluate each individual patient and come up with an appropriate plan of action. Clearly, you and your partner possess this ability, and it simply pisses off the competition. They're jealous that you got to call a helicopter and they didn't. They're jealous that you thought of something that they were incapable of thinking of. They're jealous that you got a pat on the back and they didn't. I have encountered this sort of thing many, many times in my career. It's typical, petty ignorant EMS crap. Although there are many factors which contribute to this nonsense, probably the greatest contributing factor is the prevalence of stupid, uneducated people in EMS with immature and unstable personalities. Screw them. Not literally, of course. But yeah, it is because of the above noted people that administration must indeed openly discourage flying (among many things). Luckily, in your case, they are astute enough to recognise those who are capable of intelligent decision making and sort them from those who are not.

Ha! You have got to be kidding me, right? I know you probably don't get to see Democratic ads up in NYS, because quite frankly, the Democrats know they don't have to waste a dime on ads in NY to get the lemmings to follow along. But if you ever got a chance to see them, you'd realise how ironic your observation is! Have you ever heard Hillary Clinton talk? Have you ever heard her talk for more than two minutes without throwing in some gratuitous reference to "our children?" I'm sorry you don't find straight forward discussion as entertaining as humour. That is unfortunate. But when the day comes that you realise that these people spend all their time (and your money) trying to entertain you instead of trying to inform you, I will be happy to welcome you to the dark side! NOTE: I didn't watch the video(s) because I am not interested, so I really have no idea what I am ranting about.

I solve this problem with this easy three-step plan that has worked for me for over thirty years: 1. I don't wear gloves, unless it is a sterile procedure or there is some other clearly visible source of concern, like messy wounds, or I will be sticking me fingers into someone's arse. 2. I wash my hands as if I owned stock in the surgical scrub manufacturer. 3. I decon everything in between every patient.

Sounds like if your partner simply pulled his head out of his arse, the coordination would follow spontaneously. It takes two to coordinate. You can't do it all yourself. Having not observed either of you, I have to assume from what I see here that you are doing just fine and that he is a loser. He's going to have to recognise two things; First, that you you are not a mindreader, and second that he is the one who is creating the problem. Then, change can occur. Until then, you have two choices. You can be direct and explain this to your partner, and hope that he is professional enough to agree that more coordination is necessary, and that he bears at least equal responsibility for making it happen. Or you can be indirect and simply stay with what your routine, and when he tries to force you into reacting to his disorganisation, just drop a non-confrontational verbal clue like, "Sure. I'll be right with you" or "Okay, just let me finish this real quick" or even "Hold that thought." Either way, I encourage you to not give in to his style. Yes, there are those who will say to "choose your battles" and let this one go. But this is an important issue that should not simply be let go without discussion. And if you give in on this one, it only allows him to establish more dominance, and expect your submission in all future issues. I suspect that he is already doing things like this for the very idea of making you feel submissive and that he is in control. Don't feed that monster.

I probably spend a couple hours a day studying, at least. It's hard if you think of it as studying though. When you do that, you find yourself procrastinating too much and worrying about getting interrupted. The way I do it is sort of in-line with my patient contacts. When I see a patient with a condition that I feel I could use an update or more information on, I hit the books immediately after releasing him. Then the situation is current and relevant, which guides my study. Usually fifteen to twenty minutes at a time, but after several patients each day. As for putting time aside strictly for study, again, it's hard to find that time when you work 18 hours a day, seven days a week, but I do about twice a week. Usually it will be something that I see very rarely and don't get to stay current on, and I'll devote an hour or so to it. And once a week we have an hour-long orthopaedic casting in-service from one of the ortho surgeons that is excellent. I can tell you that if my day consisted of a lot of sitting on me fat arse at the fire hall and doing nothing, I would get a lot more studying done. Unfortunately, in my experience, those are the ones who study the least.

Definitely the spoon. As with EMS, the key is to start with the broadest possible foundation, and then to shape that into whatever is needed to fit any given situation. Although, I love the spork idea!

The toughest question I have received is when they ask you about your former employer. I don't mean when they ask why you left or that sort of thing. I mean when they ask about the quality of the organisation and its people and how it is run. Do you tell the truth about what a crap-hole the place is and get points for honesty? Do you lie and tell them it was a good place, but you were just ready for a change? Do you fudge it and make a bunch of non-committal statements that don't really say anything at all, letting them read between the lines? I'm sure there is a "by the book" answer according to HR experts, but in reality, you really don't know what your interviewer is looking for. You have to hope that your ability to judge your interviewers is accurate or you will fail this test.

Plus five for the post of the day. :thumbright:

You have to be careful with that one. There are quite a few so-called "experts" out there who will be quite happy to take the stand and testify as to the inappropriate nature of that move. As popular as this manoeuvre seems to remain, it has been "officially" verboten for over 20 years. If one of your patients ends up dead or injured from positional asphyxia from this (not that uncommon), you become both unlicensed and incarcerated very quickly.