Dustdevil

Just check Intermediate, VS. Although the education level is vastly different, the SOP is about the same. I'm waiting for the first wanker to lecture us about how New York doesn't have those levels and they are an EMT-CC or an EMT-IV or some similar nonsense. SPELL CHECKED: One error corrected. :?

Next time this happens, remind the medics to undo the ischial straps from the KED before they lay you down. SPELL CHECKED: No errors found. 8)

You're not going to ever hear any negativity from ANY medics where they are paid big money and never have to run BLS or non-emergency runs! Would you? They know they have a good thing going on for themselves, regardless of the negative effects it has on the citizens. So does anybody know how long and comprehensive their school is? Simply making medics go through their own school does not in itself impress me. Dallas does that too, and they are one of the worst systems in the state. SPELL CHECKED: No errors found 8)

I would venture a guess that less than ten percent of all persons who enter EMS actually are motivated by altruism. I would also venture a guess that more than ninety percent of all persons who enter EMS say they are motivated by altruism. That's a lot of liars in EMS! The simple fact is that if it weren't for the uniforms and sirens, half of the people in EMS would never have given it a thought. EMT schools nationwide would go bankrupt and close their doors. And consequently, the demand would handily exceed the supply, and wages would go up. Ain't capitalism great? SPELL CHECKED: No errors found. 8)

First rule of emergency driving: It is no different from regular driving, just noisier. There is no reason you should hit any more nasty bumps running hot than you would any other time. If you do, you need to go back to EVOC.

That is the only thing you have said that I disagree with. Protocol is the firemonkey way to do business. The best and safest way to do business is to get a comprehensive and meaningful education and use your intelligence and experience to see the total patient picture and then arrive at clinical decisions based upon them. The human body is not a book. And medicine is not one big flow chart. Protocols should be a framework from which to base your clinical evaluation and care decisions, not an instruction manual. So how long do these gods of paramedicine in Seattle go to school to learn to walk on water anyhow? What can we learn about Seattle that makes them so much better than anybody else, clinically speaking? Protocols? Psssshhhh, whatever. Protocols don't make the medic. And it has already been established here that their operational procedures suck turd. So, I want to know what makes the medics themselves so special. What I have read here makes me much less impressed with the system than I was before the discussion began. Reputation only takes you so far in the real world. After that, you have to prove yourself. I remain unimpressed.

I got no problem with that. So long as there is a Grandfather clause! 8)

Because there are half a million other EMT's and medics who are just itching to step in and take their place for the same or less money, that's why. The workforce is cheapened by all the wanker vollies who give it away.

Haha, those tapes should be edited into a "greatest hits" collection. I pulled up next to my sergeant once to talk about something. Got out of my patrol car and walked over to him with something distracting on my mind. About the time I started talking to him, I noticed he was looking past me instead of at me. I'll never forget how calmly he said, "Uh... you better go catch your car." :shock:

If I remember correctly from the last time I studied 12 leads about 20 years ago, Dubin say's you're both right. V1 and V2 are septal. V1 through V4 are anteriour. The difference is that in a septal, you'll get ST depression. In an anteriour, you will get ST elevation. But then again, it's been awhile. Anybody have a Dubin book to check? I trust him more than any other source.

Sure, if you want half-assed "medics" with no ongoing experience working on you. That's even worse than training firemen to be paramedics! I wouldn't want half-assed bodyguards either. Every man gets a job. One job. This isn't the Special Forces where we have to maximize efficiency by giving everybody a couple of jobs. There is plenty of room for specialists on a presidential protection detail.

The more I think about it, the more I conclude that age is really a complete non-issue. The answer to every single problem in EMS is the same: Education. If EMS education was long enough and comprehensive enough, immature people of any age would very rarely finish. And by the time they had spent at least two years attaining that entry-level education, they wouldn't be kids anymore. If an sixteen year old completes two years of college and completes a grueling academic course of study, and successfully completes the 1000 hours of internship, then by gosh, he is welcome on my ambo anyday.

Great idea! Unconstitutional, but still a great idea. :wink:

Meh... I'd still have to go with better educated paramedics. But after that, I'd be all over safety. Them boxes is dangerous, inside and out!

Sorry I didn't make myself clear. I wasn't talking about this incident in particular. I was referring simply to the practice of screening calls to decide who does and does not require ALS. It has gotten more than a couple of agencies in major legal heat, and a few people decertified in the process. Again, the quality of the care in that system is irrelevant if they never make the scene, or do so only after BLS has made the scene.

Because AHA is always right! Bretylium, anyone?

I'm not passing judgment. But if they are picking and choosing their patients, there are very well established risks involved in that process, which does not speak well of their system. They may be the most clinically sophisticated medics in the universe, but if they are neglecting to respond to patients who need them, they suck. Such is the risk of a tiered system.

Just curious, if they blow, are you sticking around to work the MCI, sacrificing yourself for a bunch of ungrateful strangers who are going to die just like you? Scene safety, my brother! I'm outta there! Send my final check to Canada!

"Gomer," "Lizard," or any other term derogatory of the elderly or infirm. :x "Crispy critter" :roll: Ten codes. :roll: "We don't diagnose! Only a doctor can diagnose!" :roll: "My EMT school was six months long!" (yeah, but it was still only 120 hours. :roll: ) "My paramedic school was a year and a half long!" (yeah, but it was still only 1000 hours. :roll: ) "My school is the best school in the state!" (and the only one you've ever been to, so you have no idea wtf you're talking about. :roll: ) "My state has the best EMS in the country!" (not that you've ever spent five minutes looking at the EMS elsewhere. :roll: ) "Our basics get to do ________ !" (of course, you don't understand WHY you're doing it, but you can still do it! :roll: ) "I can do more than an RN can do!" (yeah, but you don't know a pheochromocytoma from an aminoglycoside. :roll: ) "Paramedics should be able to become RNs without all that extra school." (you're a retard :roll: ) "They shouldn't let RN's become medics." (because they are a threat to you and your little night-school certificate :roll: ) "My community can't afford paramedics." (But you can afford road crews, water engineers, janitors, secretaries, dispatchers, and bus drivers? :roll: ) "If the patient needs ALS, I just call for them." (of course, with 120 hours of training, you have no idea what the patient's problem is, much less whether or not he needs ALS :roll: ) "I'm just doing this til I get into medical school." LMAO!!!

She doesn't need a basic either! She needs her mom to get off of her fat ass, quit watching Oprah, and drive the girl to the doctor's office, if the girl is not old enough to drive herself, that is. So, your example doesn't really work. And the excuse that so many rural services are volunteer doesn't work either. That's like saying we can't have paramedics because we don't have paramedics. Well duh! The point is to change the status quo, not to accept it as a fact of life. And the monetary concerns are bogus too. You don't see the county or city running any other positions or services with volunteers, do you? There aren't any volunteer city secretaries, water engineers, mechanics, road maintenance crews, janitors, or lawn mowers are there? The police and sheriff aren't dispatched by volunteer dispatchers are they? Do you think the school bus drivers get up at 0500 everyday for free? Hell no. Yep. There is money. Plenty of money. They just don't think YOU are worth it. And you know why? Because any idiot can pass a 120 hour EMT course. And more than half of those that do are perfectly willing to work for free because they think the lights and sirens are cool. The nurses at that little bitty hospital you are talking about somehow managed to go to nursing school. And I can assure you that most of them weren't from rich families. The cops all managed to finish a police academy. So don't tell me there is no way that the people can get educated. It's all bogus. It's mindless excuses for the inexcusable. Patients who need ALS need ALS now. They don't need it twenty to thirty minutes after first calling for help. They don't need it after some advanced first aider called a EMT does an incompetent assessment to determine whether or not the patient needs something that he doesn't even understand. And that is the BIG problem with this whole theory of tiered response. Basics are simply neither trained nor educated enough to determine who needs ALS and who does not. Hell, as evidenced by a lot of the stories here, a good many medics aren't even capable of doing it! So no, there is no need in transporting EMS for "better basics." There may be a need for better first responders, but in transporting EMS, the need is for basics to be replaced by paramedics so that people will get the care they think they are getting from watching television for the last thirty years. And those paramedics should very definitely be much, much better educated than they currently are.

So... if they get on the scene and find a BLS emergency, what do they do? Babysit the patient for fifteen to twenty minutes til a BLS unit shows up? Refuse and leave? Just seems like a lot of weird loopholes in that system. Not to mention that any system that has basics evaluating whether or not patients need ALS is FAR from being a great system, no matter how smart their medics are.

Just out of curiosity, which parameter was he not oriented to?

I could say the same about women. :wink:

He can if he hit it!

Yep, I would have to say that walking across a field where you KNOW people are shooting birds is pretty stupid. Darwin at work.