Dustdevil

Nope. Sorry. Cdemt asked for a plan that was workable. Your plan has been tried for the last thirty years, and it has failed miserably. "Folks" can't be lobbied to know the difference between an EMT and a Paramedic, much less the difference between a 6 minute response time and a fifteen minute response time. So long as there are warm bodies in the ranks talking a bunch of self-serving crap about "dedication," they ignorantly assumed they are covered. Hell, we can't even "lobby" most medics to understand the difference! Sarge, you're honestly too smart to believe in your own plan here. A body is a body to "folks." Why does it keep coming back to this dishonest argument, Sarge? I have never made any remark critical of your medical competence. It is simply not the issue. It is about you robbing your community of assured full-time coverage just so you have a hobby. I don't care how good you are at your hobby. You might be the best in the state. Again, it is irrelevant. You are just one man with limited time to provide and other priorities that ultimately overshadow full-time participation in your hobby. The point is pointless. And naive. And, quite frankly, either dishonest or ignorant. You know better. You and your fellow volunteers aren't being utilised. You're being used. You're not giving anything to your community. You're giving to the politicians. You're giving them the bodies to pad their numbers and show citizens that they are being provided for without those leaders having to ever actually step up and do their job to provide a critical service that they would be -- and could be -- paying for. You are enabling those "leaders" to shirk their duty. It can be argued that, as non-EMS personnel, they simply don't know better. You do know better, so you have no excuse. If you're so overwhelmingly obsessed with an altruistic sense of giving to your community, why don't you organise a squad of volunteers to pick up the trash, mow the lawn, clean the offices and toilets, feed the prisoners, answer the phones, and work on the cars at the county courthouse or city hall? There are a lot more people available and qualified to do that than to provide medical care. And you would save them enough money to put on a full-time staff of medics instead of relying on volunteers of questionable qualification who may or may not be available to respond at any given time. Why don't you do that? Simple. It's because you're not giving to your community because of a sense of duty. You're simply volunteering to satisfy your urge to play EMT without having to actually walk the walk.

That's where I went to school. It was only 4 months back then. :shock: You're absolutely correct. What most people fail to realise is that the accelerated shake-n-bake schools like that are almost all set up for one purpose: to put a patch on the shoulder of full-time urban firemen as fast as humanly possible so they can meet their numbers. Those guys are not being trained to work independently or with clinical sophistication. They are being taught how to perform at the minimal acceptable level for an urban environment where they will always be partnered with at least one other experienced paramedic and never face a transport time greater than ten minutes to a major medical centre. IV, airway, maybe a first round of prefilled cookbook drugs, then load and go. Hardly what any medic dreams of doing for his career. And hardly what the majority of medics end up doing with their careers. Definitely inadequate for suburban or rural practise, and arguably inadequate for even urban practise. I would personally not hire a graduate of that program, or any other such program without significantly more post-graduate education and experience.

Yes, you are definitely naive! We ARE presenting a plan that will work. The plan is this: No more volunteers = no more free labour. No more free labour = no more free EMS. No more free EMS = paid and professional EMS. It is the most sure-fire workable plan there is. Now if all the wankers will just cooperate. But they won't, because they are selfish and more interested in their own hobby than the good of their community.

I agree. The temptation is great to the newbie. Especially the younger ones who still think life is a race and are all about instant gratification. And since the system basically tells us that it only takes 6 months to be a good paramedic, I certainly understand how those with no real knowledge or exposure can conclude that it is adequate for them. Unfortunately, when somebody gives you a patch and a licence, it only reinforces the belief that you are "there." And since the market is flooded with 1 month EMT's and 6 month paramedics with low intelligence and even less motivation, newbies are given no significant motivation to advance beyond all the other slugs. It's our job to educate the new generation and expose the realities of the profession to them, showing them what they do NOT know, showing them how much more they could and should know, how important it is to them and their patients, encouraging them to continuously progress and improve themselves, and improve the profession as a whole. But more importantly, it is our job to lead by example. As long as only one out of several hundred medics they meet has bothered to earn a degree or otherwise improve themselves, we can't expect them to believe they need to do so themselves. I can still respect the occasional family man who, not really understanding the profession, chooses the quickest route to entering the profession so he can get started feeding his family. You have to understand and respect that. But after that, it's time to improve yourself. I have no respect for the man who takes the quickest route to the profession, and then firmly plants his arse into the recliner chair at the station for the next twenty years without every going back to school. Matter of fact, I don't respect the one who plants his arse in the chair for only the next two years!

Another radio redundancy, which rates up in my top pet peeves. One time I actually heard somebody acknowledge a radio transmission by saying this :shock: Seriously! You can't make this crap up! :?

I would hesitate to classify anything you have said here as a "belief." More like myopic contentions. Nobody is knocking your obsessive desire to spend every waking moment in your boyfriend's face. We've all been there. Some of us are there right now (although not with a boy ). What we are knocking is the lack of professionalism that keeps you from exercising good judgement and self control. You're ignoring the voices of reason, both here on the board and inside your head. It's selfish. It's immature. It's unprofessional. And it's going to get one or both of you in trouble if you don't get it under control. And when that happens, hopefully it will be enough of a reality check for you to step back and see how truly silly your thinking was. Good luck!

It's a Canadian thing.

Meh... originality is overrated. It's a great enough concept that it remains valid, no matter how many times it has been stated before. :thumbleft:

Oh man! Excellent observation! =D> That is SO very true! And it holds especially true in EMS, where Doctor Bledsoe's assessment is spot on. When I took my first ambo job with nothing but an advanced Red Cross card, I thought I knew everything I needed to know. When I upgraded to EMR, I was appalled that I had been allowed to practise with only Red Cross training. When I upgraded to EMT, I was appalled that I had been allowed to practise with only First Responder training. When I upgraded to Paramedic, I was appalled that I had been allowed to practise with only EMT training. And about fifteen minutes into Nursing school, I was appalled at how little I had really learned in the previous twenty years as a Paramedic. Everytime I hear a medic (or EMT or PCP or CCEMTP or anybody else, for that matter) mouthing off about how their school was "too long" or even "long enough," or how they don't need or don't have time for more education, or bragging about how many "skills" or drugs they have, or whining about how they ought to have more, I just want to bitch slap them out of the profession.

Yeah, almost every FD in the country I am aware of operates like this. How else would you work it? And if you worked it any differently, it would negate the value of doing 24's in the first place, lol!

Just rough approximation, thus the rounding. I never claimed to be supplying authoritative standards to satisfy the Dept. of Labour or anything. Sheesh, guys! Thirty days a month. One shift every third day. Ten shifts a month. Rough math. The way we have been approximating it for the last 30 something years. Don't get all testicalogical on me. :roll:

You should have saved your time, Sarge. I already covered that in my last post, which said: You got yourself all worked up over nothing. When referring to volunteers, we mean just that; volunteers. We're not talking about professionals moonlighting on the side. When you combine the to for the sake of your argument, you invalidate your argument.

The posts in this thread and others on this board say you are wrong. When the vast majority of those volunteers say things like, "I don't have time for all that education or CE," or "I can't afford to go to school or get CE's because I have to work my PROFESSION to feed my family," or "I can't get all that practice that professionals get because I have a job and a family," it is clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are hobbyists and not professionals. There is simply no way around that fact except through spin. Are there professional volunteers out there? Sure. They would be the ones who actually work professionally in EMS and volunteer on the side. Scabs. More spin. EMS doesn't do transfers either. Without E and M, you don't have EMS. Just an ambulance service. If volunteers were truly interested in helping people (as they all say they do, which is a big lie) they would run transfers too. But no. That would be a job. They aren't interested in a job. Just a hobby. Point proven.

That's exactly what I did for almost five years, and it was a pain in the arse. People stop returning your phone calls after awhile because they are tired of filling in for you. You miss classes because of late runs. The day you can't get to class because nobody was available to fill in for you is the day of the major exam with no make-ups. Not to mention the logistics of trying to arrange all of this for four to six years is simply stressful. And of course, all the days you either sleep through class or don't make it there at all because you were up all night. Yes, Nate... it can be done. I've done it. But the point was that 24 hours shifts makes it much more difficult. It is FAR from being ideal. It is full of pitfalls that either delay or completely derail your scholastic plans. And frankly, damn few people in EMS have what it takes to git 'er done.

College?? :?

Well, you worried me for a moment there. Just long enough to recalculate the numbers. I stand by my figures. $9.50 x 24 hours = $228.00 $228.00 x 10 shifts per month = $2280.00 $2280.00 per month x 12 months = $27,360.00 per year before overtime or benefits.

Uhhh... no. Not at all. :? You're comparing a hobby to a profession. Totally invalid.

Not only are 24 hour shifts cheaper for the agency, they are simply easier to schedule. A 24 hour shift schedule pretty well runs itself without a lot of administration. You only have to worry one time a day about people not showing up instead of three times a day. That's one-third the hassle for administration, which is a significantly attractive factor. And of course, the up-side for employees is the time off. Take one vacation day, or simply trade one shift with somebody, and you suddenly have a five day vacation with pay, just about anytime you want it. And only working every third or fourth day is very conducive to working other jobs, running a business, or simply devoting a lot of time to your hobbies and interests. All of those do a lot to keep you from burning out. And hell, who doesn't like the idea of getting paid to sleep? There is also a down side of 24's, both for agencies and employees. For the agency, it creates the need for a very costly infrastructure of living facilities (stations) for your employees that you would not otherwise need. Stations aren't cheap (although it can be argued that keeping ambos running on the road for 24 hours straight without rest is equally expensive in wear and tear, maintenance, and fuel). For employees, 24 hour shifts make attending college or university very difficult. In fact, it is why I left the fire service. Unless your only goal is to take fire courses at the junior college (where they schedule the classes to accommodate fire schedules), you will have a hard time attending MWF or TTh classes when you work 24's. Of course, it really doesn't matter since firemen are just overpaid manual labourers anyhow. What do they need with a university education? But still, if you find yourself wanting to improve yourself and get a meaningful education, it's quite tough when working 24's. Also on the downside is the stress factor. In a busy system, where you rarely get a full night's sleep, burnout comes much faster to the 24 hour shifter than the hourly shifter. Half of the time you end up wasting your entire first day off catching up on sleep from the day before, effectively cutting your two days off in half. Your performance is also decreased when operating on low, no, or broken sleep, which is detrimental to patient care. Not only is your mind not as sharp, but your give-a-damn is decreased too, causing you to no-ride people in order to get back to sleep, or simply not treat them as compassionately as you would when wide awake. I know there are even more significant factors to be mentioned, but I'm drawing a blank now. I'll get back to you.

Completely agree. That was exactly my point. But I'm not really talking about "the media" as in journalists. The point is the general public and their perception from entertainment television and movies. The news media does about as good a job of covering EMS as they do anything else, give or take.

I don't see that anybody said that. My specific point, as well as Scaramedic's point, was that most everybody misunderstands that which they have no other exposure to other than television. I specifically stated that I was as dismayed with public safety's perception of journalism as I was with journalism's perception of public safety. It's universal. It is not us against them. Everybody's understanding of the world is shaped by the media. And the media, unfortunately, has no better understanding of reality than the general public.

LMAO! This thread gets better by the minute!

Location, location, location. Would you rather make $15 an hour in a state with a fifteen percent state income tax and a cost of living through the roof, or $10 an hour in a place with no state income tax and reasonable cost of living? And would you rather make $15 an hour as a per diem employee with no benefits or $12 an hour with full benefits? The hourly wage is a pointless discussion when not viewed in context. So don't start salivating over somebody else's wages until you do an apples-to-apples comparison.

Hehehe... I'm actually very glad to hear that! I was going to be very disappointed if you were trying to spin the discussion.

That is something I would honestly be very interested in reading more about. I know there has been a good bit of research in this area. Do you know of any sources for such research? I'd like to see how their theories match up with my experiences, as well as how they came to their conclusions. Like I said, theories and reality don't always match up. If you have ever been a cop or fireman or medic or nurse, you know that the vast majority of the general public has very little understanding of your profession, yet they all think they know your profession intimately. In fact, journalists fall into this same category. As a journalist, I used to cringe and the retarded questions and statements I heard from my fellow journalists at press conferences. They too all think they completely understand the public safety professions, but they don't. And as a cop, I was appalled at how horribly they misunderstood journalists and the news media too. So I'm not laying blame on anybody here really or accusing you of anything. I'm just saying, people DO believe the crap they see on tv. And if they think they don't, they are fooling themselves.

Whoa, wait a minute.... wtf are you talking about? Who said anything about going to your patient empty handed? :? Nobody said any such thing here. We are talking only about whether it is appropriate to delay your arrival at your patient's side to drag the STRETCHER in with you. Of course you would ALWAYS take your equipment in with you. In fact, I would bet I probably take more equipment into a house with me than most medics do. But there is absolutely NO good reason to bring the stretcher with you in 99 percent of the scenarios. It slows you down. It encumbers you. And it does not save you a trip back to the ambulance. So really, there is simply no point to it. I would be very hesitant to work for an employer who couldn't figure that out.