Nate

At Bay Star we run BLS trucks and the paramedic responds on a squad for transfers and 911 calls. Now our day crew paramedics work on a truck with either an EMT-B or an EMT-I. One of my 24 crews (they don't rotate, but we as paramedics do) has two paramedic students who are just waiting to test, and one of them is an EMT-I; so it is nice to have the extra set of hands on that crew. (They are all awesome crews though, just nice to have an EMT-I so he can grab the line while I get the tube.) At the City of South Houston (SoHo), we are down to three paramedics, and soon will only have two because one of them is having a child. So it is rare that we even get to work with another paramedic (although I'll be one for a few hours tomorrow). Quality paramedics are hard to come by in the Houston area. Most that are decent don't find themselves with out a job that often, and those that are usually not employeed are that way for a reason. I think that soon we will see more services start to go towards dual paramedic trucks as the pay increases. A few of the cities around here run dual paramedic trucks.

I like battery powered units, but we cary the Rescue -Vac after problems with the V-Vac.

Haha, my cell phone, laptop, and PDA all have wireless web, plus I carry a pager from the private service. (Thank God that the city doesn't make us carry one). When I'm in class I turn all my ringers off. If I'm going to pay for a class, then I'm going to get my money's worth.

He didn't say, and the other options were taken, so I was just throwing out another cause of hypotension. She hadn't vomited yet, guess we gotta send him in for a stool sample to check and see.

Dustdevil, your older then the Pope.

A GI bleed. I had a patient that was 20 some odd weeks and had a GI bleed, she almost didn't make it.

Isn't it illegal for a government or for profit agency to operate on "citizens band" freq.?

Generally the cot is hooked onto the catch hook of the ambulance and someone who weighs around that (or weights) are placed on the cot and you are asked to load the cot. Sometimes they will put someone at the other end and you'll have to lift the cot from level 2 (where someone can sit on the cot from a standing position) to load position. 125 lbs is easy because you are only lifting a fraction of that weight.

Well things are changing, NR is starting to make it harder on those "schools" to keep their doors open, employeers are starting to hire from select schools (we are that way).

Wheeled Coach, McCoy Miller, AEV, Osage, we have a little bit of everything.

Dickies makes a similar slacks, they feature a "cell phone" pocket. I sport these because they aren't as tight as regular ones, plus makes a great place to store extra gloves. I've never really liked true "medic" pants because my jump bag has everything I need.

So what are billy things?

Most of the volunteers that I've worked with as a paid paramedic have told me the reason why they don't "go paid" is because they would take a pay cut and they don't want to lose their ability to do EMS. My old volunteer fire department had a lot of paid union guys that volunteered there. They flat out said they would volunteer until the department went paid because they didn't want to see their community do with out. As a result that department is headed towards paid full time and I think most of them will leave HFD and continue on there.

What is a billy pocket?

I have to agree with Ridryder and Dustdevil here. I truly don't think that people understand thae difference between EMT-B and paramedic. After all to most of them we are "ambulance drivers" in their eyes. Most are shocked we even do anything in the back of that little box.

They have been trying for a few years to require paramedics on every ambulance, however rural fire cheifs have been fighting this because it would most likely require them to pay for paramedics, which they generally either can't afford.

Can we get some use of paragraphs please...killing my eyes.

The problem with these rejects in school and them not passing is that soon the school is forced to lower its standards in order to keep a good passing rate. Schools hate to lose accrediation as well as negative publicity. Sometimes it is easier for them to "slide" a few through instead of dealing with the problem. My college found it better to slide us through a four week speech class instead of face a lawsuit...go figure everyone got an A in the class too. (Which is one of the reasons why I transfered out.)

I'll admit I usually don't read the article, I wait for someone to cliff it.

Wanting state or service patch?

You could always pay the quality ones more and toss the bad ones. It won't take long before you have a fax machine turning non-stop with applications and a pool of medics to pick from. Lets face it, money will motivate people...and the more money you offer the more likely your willing to get a quality medic from another service to switch over to yours.

Big strong country boy will do the trick. :wink:

Schools here are hiring EMT's to fill those spots. All our nurses do is give out medications to the correct child, keep up with shots, put band-aids on things, and call 911.

The things I don't like about the Type I's are usually the lack of ability to communicate with who ever is in the back, or having the ability to see what is going on. Those little cubby holes aren't easy to fit in just to tell your driver something. The other thing I don't like about them is they usually isolate your student from the crew. However, they are safer for front/head on impacts. I perfer a Type III because of the pass through which enables me to talk to the driver in a normal voice, allow the student to see where we are going from the jump seat instead of trying to crame into the cubby hole (because no matter how many times you tell them not to, they still do it). I also think they are easier to drive. I'm usually in a Ford Explorer or in the back of the ambulance, so the few times I do drive it is nice to have a little smaller nose.

You'd be surprised at what does and doesn't.