DwayneEMTP

You know, just as it seems that every few months we have an influx of people that need to make the argument that spelling and grammar don't matter, it seems that we have those same phases where the City gets mean.... I look at post after post of... If you use mnemonics you are, or will be, an idiot. If you need mnemonics to tell a patient is hurting you're an idiot. You're an idiot for using mnemonics because you won't understand the answers you recieve anyway. If you want to be a basic you're an idiot, because basics are idiots. You must be an idiot, because your teacher seems to be an idiot, and you're still at that school. Did all of the non idiots in this thread read the title? Did she make an argument for these practices somewhere that I missed? Are you under the impression that she invented them? She wanted a little help studying. We get all high and mighty about how the City is for learning, for helping people that want to further their education, yet you're willing to chase away a n00b because she was taught different mnemonics than you? What in the hell is going on!? Lisa, some of these same people, on a different day, would tell you, "No matter what level you're at, no matter what your certification, do not allow people to treat you with disrepect." Unfortunately at times like this you will come to understand why people say that "EMS eats it's young." I'm gonna channel Dust for a second...(my word of course not his) "If you ask your teachers a simple question, or make a simple request for help and they tell you that what you're learning, how your learning it, or simply that you're not smart enough to learn it, without offering you a better alternative? Then your teachers suck." Good luck getting her to ask her next quesion. Dwayne

Wow...great points. His behavior certainly wouldn't be acceptable when I become a full fledged medic. There is so much gray area as a student when it comes to responsibility sometimes. And no. I realized during basic class that there was a whole different world out there where medicine was concerned...and it made me crazy! Thus medic school... I've never had a tendency to believe I was better than most people, and wouldn't refuse to hang the bag...I only meant that I can understand their misunderstandings when they first leave school...No argument that his kid should have known better... You're such a peach... Dwayne

Actually, this kid was trying to help me! He truly believed that I had ignorantly given this man substandard care. And as Dust pointed out, it's not completely his fault. He left school with the belief that he knew THE best way to care for trauma patients, and has worked the last two years with medics that have allowed him to continue to believe it. It's funny, because it's not what I've come to expect from the basics in this system. They have no dilusions about where they are, what is expected of them, and their goals for the future. I didn't really want to send this thread in this direction. I truly did want to try and show the offended basics the behavior that is sometimes offensive, but having done so now, I would like to make this clear. The responses that have followed were in response to THIS basic and basics with ATTITIDES LIKE HIS. If you are not this basic and/or don't share his attitude(s) then there is no reason you should be offended by the responses. When someone says "they are under educated and don't know what they don't know!" that's not really a shot at you. When I passed the didactic portion of class and went to work the ambulance I spent the first several weeks saying to myself, "WTF! I paid a ton of money for my class, studied my ass off until I was sick to get my 3.54 average, how the hell did they let me through without teaching me this!!! (some simple concept that I, and many around me believed I should have been taught.) No one is blaming you for not knowing you weren't going to save the world when you came out of basic class. Many of us didn't know either!! But we do/will hold you accountable if you choose to continue to believe the propoganda after many have taken the time to explain to you the truth. You made it through basic class. You passed you tests. Shame on you if you're not proud of that! When I was there I wanted to frame my cert...So it broke my heart, and hurt my ego when people here told me it was a small achievement in medical terms (it was a long time before I heard the "medical terms" part). It took me being introduced to the hospital and ambulance environment to make me realize that if Dust, and AK and others like them hadn't been kind enough to break my heart with the truth, the rest of the medical world would be laughing at me, because I would have continued to believe that I was something that I'm not. See what I mean? Being a basic is cool! Be happy with that and not need to make it more/different than what it is. The same as I don't pretend to be a medic (I'm a student). And when I'm a medic, I won't pretend to be a doctor...I simply am what I am. (Esse quam videri) I've probably made this whole subject worse than it was...that wasn't the spirit intended. You'll just need to read it and then try and translate it into something Eydawn or chbare would have said....Hopefully then it will make sense. Dwayne

Agreed. This is the funny forum and certainly the appropriate place for this. In the short time I've been involved in EMS I've heard tons of 'off color' stories that I found funny... No shame in laughing at the those stories...those that don't like to be offended are warned before entering the forum. As to the medic explaining proper suicide techique in Anthony's post...I watched an episode of "Paramedic" (or whatever that show was) where they brought in a person with their throat slashed...while the trauma team is working on them, the medic explains, Paraphrased, "See, the mistake people make is pulling someone's head back before slitting their throat. This pulls all of the important anatomy back behind the trachea where it's protected. To do it right, you really should push the head forward, and then slit the throat. You'll have much better success." He found that terribly funny...me...not so much. Laughing about healthy, living people too dumb to die...well...that's kind of funny to me. Dwayne

Are you kidding me? Have you watched the chicks play softball, or vollyball for that matter?! They're animals! I know when I lived in Calif. the boys varsity baseball team complained about the girls softball playing at the same time on other fields....Because no one wanted to watch the boys play. Not only because softball chicks are always hot...but they are good! The girls should give the guys clinics on agression and attitude.... I caught the girls high school vollyball team doing an exhibition at my son's school. I spent the whole time going "Good God! Are you friggin kidding me! She could have been killed!" It's like a cross between vollyball and rollerball....Awsome. They make the boys look silly. Anyway, I know that's not what this threads about...I'm just sayin'... Dwayne

I had a case the other day that might help make this point, or perhaps just make me look like a bonehead…either way, here goes. A homeless man badly beaten in an abandoned house, time of beating unknown, but blood has dried on his face. Fire has a collar on and is applying spider straps as we arrive. He boarded and carried to the ambulance. Both eyes swollen completely closed, nose obviously deformed, left side of head- temporal/mandibular area swollen to nearly a perfect half circle, ears full of blood bilat, some fresh, some dried. Right hand has obvious deformation to all fingers and is swollen to the wrist, grunting respirations, repetitive questioning repeated approx. every 10-15 seconds. In the ambulance I cut through the multitude of clothes to expose his chest, as I reach for my stethoscope the basic (of several years) tells me, “We need to get the rest of his clothes off and do a physical exam!” To which I say, “Keep working on his clothes.” I listen to his lungs, palp his chest and the basic finishes exposing him. I ask the basic to spike and hang an IV and get me a 14g from the box to which he says “You haven’t finished your physical exam! You need to do that before worrying about an IV!” So I spike my own bag, get the IV, finish my physical exam, piss off the basic, deliver my patient to the hospital. When we come out he says, “I’d like to talk to you about that call.” Of course I say, “Sure.” He tells me that the problem with new medics, particularly “zero to heros” is that "they want to do fancy stuff without doing the basics first." So I ask him to be more specific… He say, “When you get a traum, it’s ABCs right!?!” I said, “Mind your tone you little prick before I stomp you into a puddle!” (Ok, I didn’t really say that…..) I said, “Of course” He said, “We got into the ambulance, he was talking, and moving, so our ABCs are covered, you should have done your trauma exam!” I said, “Where you and I disagree is that making sure he’s breathing is our only job. I didn’t like the grunting respirations, which made me think possible tracheal/thoracic injury, with made me wonder about possible pneumo, amongst other things. I don’t believe that the B simply stands for make sure he’s breathing now, but to make sure he’s also likely to keep breathing…right? Is it you feeling that as long as he starts out breathing that we’re OK unless he arrests?” (I guess he didn’t hear me) He said, “ Well, medics always want an IV, but he might have been bleeding out! You don’t know!” I said, “I swear to God I’m going to choke you to death if you are still within reach 5 seconds from now!” (Ok, I didn’t really say that….) I said, “I takes at least a bit of blood to bleed out right? We had him naked, did you see any blood?” (I guess he didn't hear me) He said, “But you should have looked before getting the IV!” (Actually, I should have been looking while HE got the IV, but he didn’t have time to do that AND explain trauma care to me at the same time.) So I said, “Look. If he’s bleeding out externally, I would have noticed. He was naked. Second, if he’s bleeding internally all I can do is manage his pressure and get to the hospital. If he starts to seize from the head injury, I need access to control it. Does that make sense??” At this point he starts walking away…and I swear, as he’s walking away he turns and says…”Well, I’m just sayin’, BLS before ALS, medics always forget that….” To the basics…It’s this kind of thing that can make people crazy. I’m not saying Suze was referring to anything quite like this, or that she’d ever behave in this manner, but I can tell you this. After you take anatomy and physiology, all that was once perfectly clear becomes terribly hazy. Skill sheets no longer apply. Did I want to inject this kid with retroactive birth control for asking about the call? Of course not. But he didn’t have any questions, he simply wanted the opportunity to explain why medics are ‘stupid’. And, if you feel that people think you stop being stupid once you become a medic (student)? Watch as people explain to me what a bonehead I am for the mistakes I made in this call…But that’s ok, I can take it, I’ve never pretended to be more than that... Dwayne NOTE. A friend of mine gave me a cool word processor with an auto correct funtion. I just noticed it shortens some words and lengthens others, which I don't have time to fix before my 90 min deadline in this post. I'll be more careful in the future. No disrespect meant to those kind enough to read/respond to my posts.

I've never really understood this thinking. Of course I don't have to explain to anyone in this thread that I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I got through basic, anatomy, physiology, pharmacology...etc, etc with mnemonics. I never think of them now, as I've seen several hundred patients and follow logic, and at times intuition, to where I need to go. But when I was nervous, or taking exams, I owe them a lot. I see them kind of like tricycles or training bras...you use them as an aid, then you mature, they are discarded. (Don’t care much about tricycles, but thank God for discarded bras! :thumbup: ) There are so many things that make little to no sense when you first learn them that I don't see the problem with 'book marking' information until you have a chance to place it in it's proper context. To really make it part of your toolbox. I don't really see it as a replacement for thinking, so much as a cheat sheet to keep it in your head until your logic and intelligence has a chance to catch up and organize what you memorized. And I had no time in basic for logic and intelligence. It was all memorization...As is the testing for the National Registry. (Right or wrong is for another thread, but let’s not pretend that this is not what “is”, even for good students) In basic class the majority will not have the time to 'live' with this information long enough to assimilate it...so are we telling them they are better off leaving with nothing? I guess I'm just not getting it... Dwayne

Well, it's nice to see anyway that after 11 bypass surgeries that he lost that extra weight and got in shape! Dwayne

None of the services around me carry it to my knowledge. We were taught that it is a great first option, we just don't have access... Dwayne (Rid, not ignoring your response to my other post, I just don't have time in between clinicals to post anything very substantial until Wed, Thurs. Thanks for responding.)

About 2 1/2 years for an AAS in Emergency Medicing...I've lost track of cost. Somewhere around $12-15,000 for about 80 college units. There was a lot of expense in clinicals. Driving, food, etc. I'm a little suprised by most of the clinical hours posted here. At the end of next month I will have about 830 clinical hours. Approx 310/hospital and our program requires a minimum of 520 preceptor hours. (Count the 2 hour 30 minute round trip to school 4-5 days a week and each shift of clinicals and...Well, I don't really want to know what it comes to.... :wink: ) Dwayne

In what situation would you give vasopressin in 3-5 mins but wait 10 mins to redose epi? Dwayne

It has nothing to do with sheepskin. It has to do with being initiated into the the environment one wants to change. As you like to remind us often, your education has been much superior to ours. At the end of next month I will have 80 college credits dedicated to EMS specifically. An you are right, at no point did they teach me the politics of Fire v Privates, Privates v Volunteers, Medic v Basics, and on and on. Which course did you take that covered those? You have labeled us "impotent hens" for posting here. I have been involved in local politics most of my life, as well as those surrounding Special Olympics and autism specific research and issues. I'm curious about you personal political history. For this reason. Anyone that has seriously campagned to create change will tell you that having ignorant people on your team is much worse than having no one at all. Yet you are here, in part, insulting people for attempting to become educated on the issues. You claim to want people to act, and at the same time explain to them that it doesn't matter what they act on, or if they understand it, "simply do something!" you say. That is a great mentality if you want to organize a mob, not so hot if you want to organize a profession. How have you ever created change with that agenda? Perhaps you'll be insulted. It's my hope that you won't, but your logic here simply does not add up to positive change. You say that you're involved on other boards that actually do something. Could you send them to me in PM please, so I can see for myself why I waste my time with the hens, when the "real Doers", are moving the world elsewhere? And how do we find a list of your, and their, actual achievments? I believe you are as important as you say you are, I'd simply like to be able to put it into perspective. EVERY significant change begins with dreamers and talkers. And I would argue that you have seen many of the same subjects discussed over and over because that is a necessary process when the community continually changes. Many of us say the same things, but if we continue to say them to different people, then perhaps that time is not wasted. I don't understand why, when you've decided that we're such a waste of your time, you continue to post? That's not meant to snipe, but as an honest question. Why does an intelligent person continue to waste substantial amounts of their time over a three year period? Again, I would like a list of the achievements that others are producing, that the rest of us "followers" have neglected. Please. So as a leader, as you've said of yourself, why don't you organize the 18,000 members here and spearhead those changes? Isn't that what a leader does? I have never been involved in anything that I didn't influence when I felt I could create positive change. But as I said before, I don't yet understand all of the issues that concern me in EMS and refuse to run off yelling and screaming for change until I feel confident that I know what I'm talking about.... I look forward to the list of accomplishments with your name on them, and those that the rest of us are hiding behind. Dwayne

If you mean Dixie...? She was the basis of boyhood fantasies for an entire generation! :oops: Looking up her picture on the net won't do her justice though...She was an obsession that grew on you... :wink: Dwayne

http://www.nothingtoxic.com/media/12036977..._a_Club_on_Fire

Heh...Michael, you give me too much credit...one of the many things I love about you... Dwayne

I completely disagree with the idea that talk is cheap. I'm pretty new to EMS, don't yet have my degree in emergency medicine, so talk is what I need. I wasn't born knowing the issues surrounding EMS, I have to learn them. I had no motivation to do so up to this point, so I haven't. But now that I do, and I've become passionate about the issues involved, I need the intelligent banter and challenges to my logic that talk brings. It would have taken me years, if ever, to be exposed to the ideas and moral/mental/educational/professional situations that I've brooded over here, if I was instead required to encounter them out in the field. I have no idea if becoming involved in EMS politics/development is in my future, but if so, I think all that I influence will be better served because I was exposed to a multitude of ideas, and ran those ideas to a logical, rational conclusion with others of the same, and very much different opinions, than if I came armed with my own experience alone. And to those that feel the drive to be involved in the politics/changes in EMS at the state and/or national level, I can't see how you don't benefit, when it's time to sell those changes, by an EMS body that is more educated, has argued the issues, and more intelligently able to support or combat new ideas, such as the one created here. I've tried some of the more political EMS boards. I've found them to be often populated by those that want to talk about the big things they are going to do, as well as to be a giant love fest with thread after thread talking about what great ideas each poster has. I have failed to see the threads listing their actual accomplishments. I prefer the debates. There is a huge need for change in EMS, and those that have the required personality to spearhead them. But a new rule, or a new law, or a new protocol can not cure the ills of EMS alone. There is just as big a need, or bigger, for a place for EMS to unite, digest and become indignant so they are prepared to make the smaller changes that are just as necessary, day to day. Dwayne

Man, there's two threads that historically would have devolved into hate fests resulting in their being locked, that instead have become the most intelligent, productive threads we've seen here in a while... Thank goodness for the intellect and compassion of those on the City that can make these threads happen....as well as Admin being slow to hit the "locked" key... You are all talking well beyond my ability to participate, but I'm grateful for being able to take the ride! I can't wait to watch these topics evolve. Dwayne

This thread, and the "fire" thread have turned out to be the most productive, quality threads we've seen here in quite a while! Of course the intellect and experience needed to say anything intelligent has gone way beyond me...so I'm just sayin'...Good job all! Dwayne

Of course that's what I was expecting...I mean...why else would one come to a thread such as this except for the opportunity for a poultry....ummm....door hardware/combo.....education? I can't imagine what you were expecting.... :-k Dwayne

Ah, got it NREMT-Basic, somehow I missed the fact that we were talking about volunteer. I can certainly see the need to add perqs if you want to hold your people without pay... Thanks for your thorough response. You know, you can ruffle some feathers here...but when you're not on the attack you are one of the most valuable posters we have not only for basics, fire and volunteers, but many subjects. I for one am grateful that you can handle the heat...many of us are interested in your thoughts and opinions, even when those same opinions get a little under our skin. :wink: Dwayne

NR...Responding from home certainly takes more time, but many ambulance crews spend their whole shift in their ambulance. Why is this good for EMS but not good for fire? If response time is critical to these dedicated professionals (meant seriously, not sniping) then why not simply post them in their truck like EMS? Why does fire require a lounge, kitchen and intertainment area but not EMS? After all most of the calls will be medical, right? Wouldn't their response times be cut down to even a fraction of their previous times if posted in their trucks? Just a thought... Dwayne

Absolutely. Many of the firemen I work with won't like this ad any more than we do, but you can't fault them for their promotion. We have a whole industry of heros that almost never lift a finger where it applies to their job title, and they get paid better than any of us! That is how you run a business... Dwayne

Hey Wendy, My apologies to you as well. I got way wound up before posting last night and should have let it go. In my defense, I did say " And half the people that posted here...", it never really occurred to me that you would think I would put you in that catergory, or that you could possibly see yourself there. Sorry for the confusion. Dwayne

Good Lord...that sounds painful..... :shock: Dwayne