Vorenus

Regarding your point 1 and 2: I can`t really agree. Our glucometers (Medisense Precision Xceed) can be stored in an enviroment from -25 Celsius to +50 Celsius and operate in a temperature scale from +10 to +50 Celsius. I`d have to look up the exact data for the stripes, but they won`t vary that much. That`s a pretty solid range of a temperature scale for the operation of a medical machine. Honestly, I`m pretty confident in our glucometers, never had a moment where I had to suspect that it was giving me wrong numbers. Of course, I do not operate in a region with extreme temperature, I guess I wouldn`t be that confident if working in Sibiria or the desert, but here it`s enough. Gotta agree with your statement about treating the patient not the machine! If you see an Asystole on the monitor while the pt. is still speaking with you - the ekg is most propably wrong...

Just a small Off-Topic question: What is a Fox shift and what`s a Kilo shift?

Hm, just as the others said: anything that`s not written is useless. In my former service we could swap our expired meds with the clinics apothecary (the initial supplier), six months before they actually expired. That was a real good deal in my opinion. Especially with meds like Oxytocin or Partusisten (never used either in the field).

Sure, if you only count terrorism with a muslim background... Then it`s even one hundred percent! I`m not sure that you`ve realized it, but there is terrorism that isn`t related to a muslim background at all... Not sure if you`ve ever heard of ETA, IRA, KuKluxKlan, Anders Behring Breivik is just the newest example, etc., ...

In London you also have Paramedics on motorcycles.

You don`t sound like a moron at all. That`s quite a good way to work a patient! I`m sure up to some level, we all experience this. I actually only recall a patients features really good (if good at all, I`m not good at remembering names for instance, just not a priority - though it angers me, `cause it`s always emberassing to look at your papers to give the doctor in the ER the name, instead of just memorizing it in the first place. Or to have to ask the patient a second time.) when he`s only minor or middle injured.

Just a small question: have you checked peripheral pulses on the legs (dorsalis pedis, tibialis posterior) and radialis pulse?

No, not a huge machine - just a lucky bargain! A 17 inches screen, a beatifull hardware-based sound and what a damn solid thing it is! ... Sorry - raving again. I`m just a bit depressed, that I need to get rid of him. I doubt that I can easily replace him...

As said in your next sentence - we all have emotions. I can`t really give you an advice, how to cope with death, everybody`s dealing with it in their own way. But I wouldn`t worry too much about future possible "traumas". There`s just no sense in it. I`m sure most of us have been worried/thinking about how they will react, when their first death in the field occurs, me too. But you can`t really know before you`ve been there. And most important - you gotta remember that after all, it`s just a job, regardless of how much it may mean to you! Sure, you do your best and wanna save them, but it`s not your emergency, it`s theirs! And if you`ve done everything you can, and still can`t help them, it`s not your fault.

That`s called power sleeping. The point is, to train your body to fall into deep sleep instantly after closing your eyes and dozing off, instead of "wasting" time with lighter sleep.

Thanks a lot, man! Sorry for the late answer, my laptops crashing down every five minutes nowadays. Guess I have to buy a new one soon, the old one is already eight years old, I understand that that`s a proud age for a laptop.

How true. Also, there is no upper limit on how often you can heat your pizza in the microwave again after coming in, while getting a call right after you try to sink your fangs in there - AGAIN!. (though my record is 5)

Never had a film crew ride with me directly (though we have shows similar to yours over here). I recall one particular incident, which was quite amusing, though propably not for the film crew. It was a car accident with several involved cars. A truck had driven in the end of a traffic jam. The truck and a smaller truck he initially rammed had gotten on fire and the FD had extinguished the fire with foam. After all patients were treated, we were still there `cause we had passed our pat. on to the heli. There was a film crew standing at the side of the read at the beginning of the area where the accident had happened, just at the height of the burned out truck. A police helicopter flew right over the truck, and the whole lot of foam that was still lying on the truck and the earth was blown right at the film crew. Sorry for being a bit OffTopic, but that was just the one incident with film crews that I can recall best. Otherwise I have been filmed at the scene, but never got the odd aggresive videographer that was killing my nerves.

Even though I wouldn`t fancy being criticized for my language, I wouldn`t mind a few tips when I`m really off the track, just to expand my language capabilities.

Sorry, I still don`t get the point when it comes to residency requirements. When it comes to funding: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/EducationAndLearning/UniversityAndHigherEducation/StudentFinance/DG_194804 The all-covering student loans that will be available in 2012 doesn`t seem to come from the Dept. Education, but directly from the British Government. I`ve been browsing through these sites quite often in the last times, but I never read that this loans wouldn`t be possible for Health Professional courses.

I guess it`s more about the unpaid leave, than it is about the maternity leave in itself. Can`t comment on US laws, but here, you can`t get fired when your pregnant and they have to pay you your maternity leave. I`ve got a question, just out of curiousity: There is another mother working? Here, it`s normal that pregnant woman who work in medical professions get maternity leave automatically if there is no alternative, such as to put them on light duty. In EMS, due to possible blood exposure (e.g.) I can`t imagine a position of "light duty" in that sense. A coworker of me got to work in the EMS school that was aligned to our firm when she was pregnant , but since that school closed last year, that options ruled out too for us now.

Heard something similar from an EMT riding in Berlin. He told me that at New Year`s Eve, they would get dispatched to psychatric calls quite often. Over the years, they had quite a few elderly patients getting a fit, because all the fireworks draw them back to the bombings they had survived in WWII. @ crotchity: When you have really nothing to say, but a load of crap to provoke others, wouldn`t it be best to say nothing at all?

Do you mean health insurances?

Wow, that aren`t what you could call formidable conditions. Is there really no concept of an overall coverage of full-time EMS at all (even within wider spaces and therefore with bigger arrival times)? About the insurance angle. Don`t know how it is in mexico, but here nearly everybody has an insurance agency, either a governmental or a private one. Also, the whole EMS germany-wide EMS is run through that angle so I don`t know how you could convey this idea into your conditions. But of course you could ask for funding from your local insurance agencies. Just tell them that studies have shown that a good EMS coverage/treatment by EMS decreases the number of days a pt. needs to stay in hospital (therefore decreased costs, since one day in a hospital bed is terribly expensive). Just my piece of thoughts.

Hm, I`ve never stumbled over any note reffering to residency requirements. All the while, there is only one differentiation - between UK/EU students and international students (non-EU students). About funding - the governments loans are not specific for any course. Plus, I`ve already looked up that as a EU-student, you qualify for these loans as much as an UK citizen. The only thing you won`t get is a loan or even a grant for living costs, as you must either be a UK citizen for that or have lived for at least 3 years in the UK. Or did you mean something different?

The GRC is a NGO, therefore it`s totally independent. All the while, there may be fundings conncerning certain insitutes (like kindergartens, etc) - though they would be general fundings (not specifically intenended for the Red Cross but for the institutions in itself). As far as the EMS goes (at least the full-time service), we are being paid by the insurance agencies, after debating with them over the amount of money we are allowed to spent (for providers, cars, stations, meds, etc) every few years. The voluntary forces of the Red Cross are mainly funded by the Red Cross, though I believe (finances are not my speciality) that at least the troops attached to disaster management (Fast Response Units, etc) get some governmental funding, since disaster management is per se a governmental assignment.

Yep, and further enquiries destroy also that streak of thoughts. I`ve totally forgotten that the British governement allowed tuition fees to increase up to 9000 pounds a year, starting 2012!!! That`s about 13-14000 Euro!!! But - there are UK governement student loans. The government is giving you the total of 9000 pounds a year and you gotta pay it back when you`ve started to work. The whole concept of increasing the tuition fees incredibly sucks of course, but due to that fact and that almost every single university is topping up to the max of fees - I`m in the game again with all universities (all are similar expensive). So, right now I`m pretty interested in the BScHons courses of Hertfordshire, Plymouth and Greenwich.

Since I`ve been reading more and more about this topic, I guess a Foundations degree to start with wouldn`t be a bad idea. I`ve been told that the BSc courses offer mainly more academic topics, that would be usefull in educational or research work (e.g. if you`d like to get into teaching, etc.). Though this sounds interesting too and I could imagine myself in one of these courses, I guess it isn`t needed right at the start of your career. As far as I`m informed, there are programmes, where you can top up your Foundations Degree to an BSc, and - what would be really great - this may be paid by your employer (if you are in a settled job situation). So even if you start with a Fd(Sc) you can still follow an academic route. The obvious advantage would be a shorter training (mostly two years) - though it`s not really the years of training that are the point here, but the exorbitant tution fees. So that would be the primarily advantage, while you can still follow the academic route when you`ve been settled into a more secure financial position. But: Do you have the same chances to be recruited with a Fd(Sc) in comparison to a BSc? Are their differences in recruitment policy? P.S.: I`ve found some universites that are much cheaper than Hertfordshire and still sound really interesting. Although Hertfordshire seems like a hell of a nice place to be, it`s tution fees would kill me.

Sounds more like a tragic accident.