Medic One

Most of ours are accidental activations and no residence in the home after PD and/or fire forced entry.

I think the site has definetly gotten better once the admins created the pay area. I am a long time member here and got frustrated a few years ago with all the crappy posts and childish antics that were going on. The site has definetly become more professional...LOOKS 100% better and hope this site really takes off but I think having facebook / myspace etc...links is not the correct direction for this site. We all know how easy it is to access the web via cell phones and PDA phones and what do most of us EMS'ers do during down time....go on the web. But boredom from the front seat of an ambulance can also cause problems with a mobile version such as facebook. It would be very easy to post pictures that we all know should not be posted and atleast if you have to wait to get to a regular computer you can think about the consequences of that picture post. I don't think a facebook link is a good idea to promote the site...I think the best promotion is word of mouth and as you stated passing emails to friends. As money rolls in from the pay chat area and maybe some site sponsorship more advertising may be something to think about in the future. The other factor you really need to think about is who is running the site, server space and speed. A sudden spike in membership could also slow and/or crash servers due to high traffic. EMTCity started out as a small hobby for someone and has really grown over the years...It takes a lot to run a web site/blog/BB and thats why it is a pay site for chat and also got rid of some trouble makers. The cost of server space and time needed to police everyone is tough. I have run BB in the past and it can get really time consuming to reset passwords, veryify information, etc.... I have over 20yrs in Emergency Services and have a lot of knowledge to pass and this site is a great medium for it where there are some real good knowledgable people. I am a member of four other EMS sites similar to this one and I think this surpasses the rest without question. I would like to see in the future here are online CME's but it costs money, time to set-up, and a EMS-I/Education team to coordinate and sign-off the CME. I am NOT an admin...I am NOT friends of admin...I am NOT even a site moderator...this is my own opinion based on the changes I have seen and hope to see in the future. Just my useless two cents...

We are a larger service that was one of the 1st in the country to use ALS fly cars starting in the early 70's. We cover over 1500sq miles have 56 vehicles in totals with 9 ALS fly cars. We run three to four supervisor vehicles per shift then the other fly cars are in sub-stations covering other towns that primarily have volunteer EMS systems. In one division we staff the fly car but if they are short VOL Crew members the medic can ride the ambulance as part of the legal crew (they are based in VOL Station). The system works very well for us as far as busy days when the ER turn around time is very long. Good to use for lift assists and crew assists where they only need one extra body for lifting etc... The "Fly Cars" are all set up as Command Vehicles with MCI gear (tarps/supplies/body bags/haz-mat books etc....) Besides the three or four supervisors on shift any other employee wishing to get cleared on the fly car must complete additional training and get clearence to staff the car for OT/vacations etc... Some of that training includes Incident Command / MCI Command(more indepth than what is taught in medic class). The fly car also allows us to staff more BLS ambulances and with the occasional errors of EMD by the 911 center it allows the BLS car to call for a medic fly car and not commit a second Full ALS Ambulance for advance life support.

I guage it by how many ribs we break.... No really we use several things.. Check pulse while doing CPR Patients color changes Skin temp then with the ALS side we use Capnography and color meters to check tube

I along with many preceptors in my area feel the woes of "The Student". I feel 100% as a preceptor is is your job to mold them into EMT's or Paramedics - what ever they are training to be but........... I know EMTs have little to no road knowledge and skills so remember when you started and mold them accourding to current standards and give them a break.... As far as the Paramedic student....well...... We have found a growing trend in our area that these programs will take someone onboard into a program to further educate them to an ALS level but the instructors are now money based...when I was a student back oh 10+years ago you had to have a minimum of 5yrs city, commercial or very very busy Volunteer experience. Today we have had many students come through that went from EMT directly to Paramedic with no ambulance time....this causes a huge problem for preceptors trying to train the BLS skills throught the ALS skills. So YES we have a lot of woes but I think a standard of time needs to be put in place by both a state and national level to have a minimum time on an ambulance prior to even starting a paramedic progam.

In it's day it was a good show but with todays tech savy EMSer's it would be a flop. I do enjoy watching the episodes on Hulu tv but to have it run on a prime channel would waste time and made EMS look old. They need to revive the dicovery health show "Paramedics".

Paramedic accused of being abusive A paramedic acted in a "deliberate and fully disreputable" manner by failing to properly treat a diabetic patient who had collapsed on a bus, it has been alleged. Rapid response paramedic Jason Sefton allegedly said the woman was drunk and failed to assess her condition. Arriving at the scene in Liverpool's city centre, he told the concerned bus driver: "Look, mate, she's pink, coherent and drunk", a disciplinary hearing in central London was told. The patient was eventually taken to the Royal Liverpool Hospital for treatment by other paramedics after she collapsed. The Health Professions Council (HPC) heard that Mr Sefton swore at the the bus driver and said: "It's not a job for us, call the police, we are busy you know." HPC lawyer Sophie Kemp alleged that Mr Sefton lied to his control room by telling them he had tried to examine the woman who, he claimed, was refusing treatment. By failing to properly assess the woman and swearing and acting aggressively, Ms Kemp alleged Mr Sefton was guilty of misconduct and therefore unfit to practise. Paramedic Chris Berry arrived at the scene in an ambulance and was told by Mr Sefton that the patient was drunk. Describing the woman's condition, Mr Berry said: "She was slumped on her side with her head resting against a window. Her speech was slurred, she wasn't really making a lot of sense. She didn't smell of alcohol." The patient started to come round after Mr Berry administered a glucose injection. The paramedic then left the bus to tell Mr Sefton that "he had completely misdiagnosed the patient", but his colleague had already driven away, Mr Berry explained. The hearing was told that Mr Sefton resigned from his post with the North West Ambulance Trust prior to an internal investigation into the allegations. He was not at the hearing. ____________________________________________ My thoughts are DO YOUR JOB!!!!!

The show is already CTD FTD and at ten pm will be DRT.!!

In CT the State of CT requires all services to be electronic by 2010. So to comply with that order the State has purchased dedicated printers to be placed at every emergency department for EMS only. The laptops providers use are to have the printer driver in it. We do run into paper issues tho.....empty a lot of times. The EMS coordinators at each ER are supposed to provide paper to the EMS room but weekend restocking is not always done. If no printer paper then ER get no EPCR copies or we have our dispatch center fax them to the ER.

Hats off to them Eh!!!! I would want to do the same thing but I know it would mean NO MORE PARAMEDIC LIC for me in CT. It would be nice to do something like that if needed but where was the PD..they could have helped one way or another.

Who's going to Biketober fest in Daytona, Florida this year. I will be at the rally from Octover 13 - October 18th. Anyone going post here and send me a "PM" Private message with your number and we all can meet up.

So our department does not have an honor guard and we learned the hard way when we had a death requiring full honors. I happened to be assigned to the detail along with a few others that have had experience with either military, fire fighting, or other EMS service honor guards. We were told 24hrs prior to the funeral detail and scrambled to borrow equipment to do the honors. We had several departments both Police and Fire offor their guard but we decided to do it on our own. From this experience we have decided we need our own team and are in the process of building it now. It takes a lot of time and committment. I served in a Horse Mounted Military Honor GUard and know the time and detail that needs to go into these things. I suggest anyone trying to form a team contact your local Armed Services Recruiter...hook-up with the High School ROTC drill teams and local Police/Fire Service. From experience the ROTC kids are always looking for stuff like this to help others as they need to prove to their recruiter they are dedicated. Good Luck forming your team.

Here are some of the fee increases directly from CT DPH website and remember these are YEARLY License fees. Paramedics are STILL more than RN's Profession old Fee New Fee Physician $475.00 $565.00** Paramedic $75.00 $150.00 Advanced Practice Registered Nurse $60.00 $120.00 Licensed Practice Nurse $30.00 $60.00 Registered Nurse $50.00 $100.00 Now the pisser of it all is that my wife (she is an ER doc) can get her renewal waived is she volunteers somewhere for a minimum of 100hrs. ALL EMSers' are excluded from that!! WTF **Waiver of Renewal Fee for Physicians Providing at least 100 Hours of Uncompensated Care in Connecticut. Now thats screwed up...we will have a great dinner conversation tonight!!

Yeah ...great topic I picked...it is great to hear many others having the same problem as me with all these rising costs and more requirments coming down the line. I mean look at the required NIMS programs we have to take (online and on our own time) for what? Homeland security training and incident command...come on people I should tax the goverment for the hours I spent online taking these useless programs. It would be better to have them as a seminar that the goverment pays you to go to (airfare/hotel/food). When I was in the military all this was paid..we are also essential elements of Homeland Security and Safety..the goverment needs to get a handle on this to help the blue collar workers in emergency services. I mean I got into EMS 20years ago and have been paying since..I DO Love my job but when I saw the front page of todays paper and they listed the NEW State Budget listing the price as of Oct 1st I went wild. Enough is enough...I an NOT required to keep my registry and do it on my own in case someday I move but thats the only reason for me to keep that. Our service pays for the required OSHA training like bloodbourne and stuff but thats it. Everything else to maintain my job comes from me...and you all know how crappy pay is. I just wanted to vent and feel better that I am not the only one going broke in EMS. We went from 75/yr to 150/yr with no warning. This all starts in 7days...we found out by reading the newspaper.

Just wondering what the average responder puts out of pocket for licensing fees and other EMS junk that we all seem to buy. As of October 1st my State Lic. fees are going up to $150 a year, then add my required 48hrs of CME time plus ACLS/PALS/NALS/CPR/National Lic recert etc.... I figure I spend atleast $500+ to work....Yes I can deduct it at the end of the year but we are getting nickle and dimed every friggin month...I have PALS/ACLS and NALS every two years but they all expire the same month and it always breaks my bank...whats next? What are we going to have to pay for next? Uhg..I really need a career change...20yrs in EMS is killing me both financially and physically.

I checked our lost and found sorry couldn't find it...I bet some dope threw it out the ambulance window when they found it on the floor... lolol You usually get a 60-90 day window if the cert is expired before ahving to retake the exam/class. If they were on Military orders they just need to get a copy of the orders and the fees are usually waived and 60-90 day time period waived. When I was on active duty (pre-computer retesting) the expiration was waived until I returned then I had 60 days to take the re-test.

So what are everyone’s thoughts on the NEW TV show Trauma due to air in the fall? From the commercials I already know it will last three maybe four episodes before getting pulled from the air. The TV producers have some nerve having a show that is so non-realistic but they advertise it as "this is what paramedics deal with daily". 1st off not one person in the TV ad even look like paramedics/emt's they are hotties soon to be back on soap operas in the afternoon. They don't have "the look" you know what I mean about the look...weathered beaten etc... And for some of us overweight. At least Third Watch actors had some of the weathered and beaten look about them. The "Trauma" shows medical technical advisors should be ashamed of even allowing some of this to air. I know their hands are probably tied with what airs but their wallets must be getting fat from blowing smoke up some director’s ass with war stories to boost the show. I can basically sum this up with its a new "Bay Watch" when that series was close to getting pulled from the air....unrealistic made for TV crap!!! I do plan to watch the 1st episode and plan on buying a new TV after that because it will probably have a boot thrown through it. Here is the NBC link. http://www.nbc.com/trauma/?__source=msn ... d|M_Trauma Any other comments on how you feel about this show?

We recently started using the 9th Brain Suite for EMS online recertification and training. This system is basically pre-set programs from video to power-points that are uploaded to the web for a webinar as they call it. You then take an online test for credit. As a member of the service we do not pay as individual to take any program. There are about 100+ program avail including certain programs put on in "our section" that are specific to our service such as blood-bourne and haz-mat. Take my poll and give me feedback. So far it seems pretty good but we are running into the problem of paying our staff for time online. It registers the time you enroll into a program and when you complete it but it can literally be open for weeks and log that time. We are currently trying to get terminal in every station house for non-supervisor staff to use during down-time but you know how that goes. Their site is different when you log in but here is some info on it if anyone wishes to check it out. http://www.ninthbrain.com/

My sleep number is "69"