DwayneEMTP

No, I use it on my computer, and can use it on my BB, but it would need the wifi, which my BB can't do...Good idea though! I subscribe to Skype and use it constantly even for phone calls... Dwayne See, this kind of advice is no help at all...Next you'll expect me to figure out what all the lights and numbers mean on that heart thingy they make me carry...and how to know what to do when the needle whats-it won't go down if I squish the arm band ball thingy too many times...who has time for such shit? Not me...I have EMTCity.... :-) Dwayne

Thanks Mike. That's exactly what I was wondering. Surprisingly it's not high speed out here, though I'm not sure exactly what defines high speed. My current assignment (I wish I could describe how massive that things is!) We have to use the satellite internet and that seems inherently slower for some reason..it looks like if I'm going to be on this gig for any length of time I'll have to have an Iphone. Thanks too Chris for the Droid info. Though I've heard the new ones are rockin' the old ones seemed to be hated by everyone! Plus, Iphone seems to pretty much own the market on apps. Thanks again guys! Dwayne

Hey all... So I'm on an ultra deep water drilling rig 250 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico and, low and behold, I get no cell service. After a few days of medication to overcome my psychological denting as I adjusted to my blackberry now being a pretty fancy alarm clock I started noticing some people appear to be texting! And another guys seemed to be playing that Scrabblish game some seem to play.. So I was asking a guy, "Hey, are you texting? I don't get a signal at all..." He said, "You're phone won't use the wifi???" And of course I had to admit..."Oh, sure! My phone just...well..yeah, man it's like the wifi king! Duh! I don't know who you think you're talking to...Bitch..." (Not an exact quote) But of course had no idea what he was talking about... So if I had an Iphone would it in fact use the wireless on the rig so that I could text real people...like the ones that walk around on land and such, and play Words with Terri, and that kind of stuff? Or am I just reading something into what he said cause I was too big of a pussy to admit that I had no idea what he was talking about? Any other cool stuff it can do that would make it worthwhile to buy one and retire my beloved Blackberry? And please...I'm not a kid any more so stuff specific to my situation and non Iphone v Blackberry hatish would be awesome! Have a great day all! Dwayne

It would seem my young friend that you are in fact the one with their panties in a bunch. See, you came here with a misconception. The 8 hr class you took to become a first responder convinced you that you were given tools to be helpful at the scene of an accident. But you were misinformed. That is not me being arrogant because I'm 'higher up' than you, that is simply a fact. Police first responders can sometimes be helpful because they come with a skill set that prepares them to deal with emergencies, volunteer first responders can sometimes be helpful, but are most times just in the way. They simply don't come with very many tools and little to no experience...they are meant to help those that come to help people. You try and insult us by claiming that perhaps we do this 'just for the money', and yet I spent nearly three years in college full time becoming a paramedic. How much time have you spent in your quest to 'help people?' A day, right? Give or take a few days? And you've not even become committed enough to your passion to take the necessary steps to volunteer. Time for a reality check man. I'm sorry that you didn't get the Rah Rah response from this professional board that you got from your mom and dad. You came in here with a decent post, were treated with a little bit of tongue and cheek fairness, and you got ass hurt. That's the down side. The upside? You didn't run away...and that shocked me. I've done paramedic medicine on the streets, in Afghanistan, and now on the ocean, and my experience pales in comparisson to most here. You really need to take a check when you begin to compare passions and commitments and motivations. But you didn't run away...so maybe you will have what it takes to become what it is you seem to want to be....We'll see. Your post was well written, with good spelling and grammar. Pretty cool... Thanks for participating brother...I look forward to your thoughts. Dwayne (Edited for an after thought;) Also Westley? It's only at your current level of training that caring for people for money sounds like blasphemy. The vast, vast, vast majority of intelligent, kind, caring professionals in the medical fields get paid man...suggesting that you were going to get paid was not an insult. See?

He's responding from TDCJ, that's why he doesn't post much..he only gets internet during library time... Dwayne

Man, I posted before without reading the article.... Easily one of the most intelligent, cogent EMS perspectives I've read...well...ever maybe. Though Fizz's 'Baby Medic' blog is right in there. Thanks for sharing brother...that truly was perfect. Dwayne

Good God! Just when I'd begun to think that there was hope for you.... Dwayne

Yeah, but still, most of the basics AND medics I know are unable to do 'the basic daily stuff' in a competent, professional manner. I think that she has an awesome idea! Not to mention that doing so would either raise professionalism in the field to increase the fail rates of the test...both good things. Dwayne

Hey Westley, welcome to the City! Yeah, this is not going to work out for you brother. Not to mention I'm guessing the the 'certain criteria' will be car accidents, house fires, active arrests...all the glory stuff and none of the lift assists? It would be a sweet gig....pick the interesting calls, fire up the lights and sirens on your Toyota, show up and be heros while the hero shit is going on, leave before the non hero clean up, care, and transport begins, and skip the paperwork, and then get paid? No lift assists, no frequent fliers, none of those stupid, 'boring' calls? Hell, I think I just came in my pants! Doesn't work that way brother. You wanna go behind the yellow tape? You gotta pay to play...simple as that. Dwayne

Man, I'm guessing I'm the only evil medic here that often didn't use restraints for my peds. (In an all adult environment now) There was a winter where we were spanked by RSV (http://kidshealth.org/parent/infections/bacterial_viral/rsv.html) and some of these kids were sick, sick, sick. We had child seats for them to sit in but the seats tended to keep them folded a little bit more in the middle than I liked, limiting their tidal volume (Or so I believe(ed)) Also, taking them from their moms when they were febrile,and hungry for air often seemed to cause them to struggle and increase their O2 demands, and I hated that... Most often it was mom strapped to the cot, child in mom's lap, on her chest, with mom holding the NRB or doing blow by O2 while I did/continued treatment and assessments. Of course these were longer transports, maybe, I doubt it, but maybe I would have made different decisions if I'd had 10-15 min transports.... I'm sure that these are just stupid excuses and/or there were better ways to accomplish the same thing, but I don't/didn't see them then or now. Sometimes peds need to be handled in the way that's best for their little brains/bods despite what's currently PC, IMO. Dwayne

Unfortunately I'm pretty sure I recognize some coworkers of mine! And have a show about us being in the mud, and the blood, and the puke? How often does that happen? It would have to be, say, a yearly show or so I think... :-) Dwayne

Hey Tiff, welcome to the City! What kind of program are you in? When did/do you start? Make sure an' jump in, ask and answer questions ok? It's the only way to make this place pay...and it can pay big. Good luck! I look forward to your thoughts... Dwayne Edit: As for friends...I have made many here, that I hope to keep forever..I'm sure you will too..

Knee jerk reaction to #1, redneck trailer trash. Thank goodness I am not inclined to live by my first impressions. After examining the photo I would go with middle class suburbanites, for the reasons mentioned above. #2, I grew up in the biker culture so I'm confident that there is very little to be guessed at by the photo. It could be a surgeon out for the weekend or a picture of a guy stealing a motorcycle. No way to know that I can tell. #3, knee jerk reaction, mentally/physically damaged person in some type of institution. Further investigation of the photo offered no real reason to change my mind. And for the record, I don't really care if you have a gay agenda here or not, as I've seen your posts and should expect that there will be some type of advocacy to most of what you do. I only ask, though I've seen little sign of it so far, that if you come with an agenda that you do so prepared to change your mind should the evidence be fair and sufficient to do so. I've started many threads with an agenda, and in many of those I have been steered to an unexpected conclusion, or at least direction. That is all that I ask of you. Can you truly say that you're not hoping to see that people will judge, and act, on their first visual impression of a person? Dwayne

Ahhh...point taken and conceded. I guess I should have reread the original post before claiming to know it's intent... That does change the context. Beginning the quest for your dream under prepared is certainly a sad and frustrating path to take. Yeah...I do that sometimes... :-) Dwayne

Hey Todd! Welcome to the City! It's always good to see new members with your type of experience! Like in any social situation, whether real life or online I'm sure that you'll see that there is a learning curve when reading/posting. Many personalities and education levels. Give it a few weeks before deciding if it has value for you or not, OK? The most significant value here can sometimes be hidden beneath petty bullshit, but it's worth the time and effort to discover! Jump right in brother....It's good to have you! Dwayne

Ruff, I didn't see the cheap shot. Though the example given may not have been perfect, it seemed to me to have been meant to illuminate the point. Mike, of course I agree with you that no education is wasted, in general. But It seems that you may have lost sight of the context of this discussion. Should someone with no exposure to EMS take college level anatomy and physiology prior to exploring and EMTB course? Sure if they have no family/work obligations and money is no object. Now, you and I seem to live different lives, or have different experiences with higher education. The two and a half years I spent becoming a paramedic were spent almost completely separated from my family. I worked, and studied, and went to class, and then worked and studied some more. Often going weeks with less than 4-5hrs/night of sleep, and often going with no sleep at all. I would see my son just one or two hours a week, and Babs only when in bed or she was feeding me. Do I love my education? I can't even begin to explain the positive changes that have come from it, and my career in EMS. Would I again subject my family to that separation, to the significant expense, so that I could get a higher education in Astronomy because I'd discovered an interest in a new telescope? Not on a bet, unless that interest showed me a direction that I may want to pursue with more vigor. There is no question that you are an intelligent and educated person, but would you truly take that time and money away from your family for something that would almost certainly not show any type of financial security/return? I would not. Though I certainly would not judge you negatively if your answer is different. Some of us are saying that it wasn't realistic advice for someone to spend a year in college prior to investigating an interest of theirs, which I believe is valid for most family people, yet all you seem to hear is "higher education is stupid." As for those without an education explaining to those that education is stupid? Yeah, I friggin' hate that....But you continue, in this conversation it seems, to put me in that class, and I don't believe that I belong there. All responses meant with respect of course. I think it's been a great conversation. Dwayne Edit: Yikes, a bunch of us posting at the same time. I posted without seeing the posts above so the redundancies are accidental.

I can see where that is true if one has no education, but with exposure to higher education do you truly feel that we have no idea of it's value? Dwayne

Amen brother. Though, unfortunately you seem to have come to a place where you believe that if I disagree with you in any way that I'm 'busting your balls.' That's not the case. I felt that you were really hard on the OP, who has never been in EMS for not seeing the obvious, 'no brainer' need for those classes despite you not seeing them in the 10 years that you were a basic. Illogical, right? I love the attitude of the post that I quoted from above. It just didn't seem to me to be the same attitude that you were responding to the other posters with. Having been that arrogant, shithead basic, shouldn't you then be more able to empathize with them instead of criticize? It took you 10+ years to come to your feelings on this..can't we give others a few weeks as noobs? My main point was, lets not kick those in the balls that make decisions other than what we would consider optimal when they don't have the exposure or education to make any decisions at all. I couldn't be prouder of you and your progress...I would just like to see you use it in a mentoring capacity, and you can't do that if you alienate those that come for advice.. Dwayne

Yeah, I have to agree. Unless you have/will use those degrees to enable you to be more viable in the workplace then I would certainly have never advised you to spend a ton of money on degrees that you believed would hold little to no value to your direction in life. Of course now, I am speaking of common men like me, and many others here. For this discussion 'common' to be defined as one that finds college level time and expense to be a significant burden. Why did you sacrafice that time away from your family and the money away from retirement/college funds for no return unless you are fabulously wealthy? And if you should be so, you will find that you have little in common with many of us here. Should I ever hit the lotto, which I don't play so would guess would be unlikely, it is my intention to do little with the rest of my life besides fishing and taking chemistry, psychics and psychology classes. Would that then be a waste? I don't think so. Both would apply to making me more valuable to the autism community as well as make me more intellectually healthy. But I've not won the lotto, and it's my belief that without making what I consider unreasonable sacrifices for my family, those things are out of my reach at this time. I believe that when we advise people to take Bachelor level classes before considering EMT B level courses that we don't help them, but instead convince them that we simply have no real idea what it means to have to struggle for those educations. That is not help, it's simply pompous rhetoric in my opinion. I've started businesses without taking BA/MA level courses. I took a flying lesson to see if I would like it without first becoming an airline pilot. I fathered a child without first obtaining a degree in child development. Was that optimum? Of course not. But is it more realistic to believe that I should go into debt to simply investigate an interest? To suggest that AAS courses should be mandatory before even dipping ones toes into the EMTB world, considering the way that it is used today, and being a cert that we know will almost certainly never be used by the owner is awesome. But to chastise someone for not taking "Peoples Lives!" more seriously is nonsense. Peoples lives will rarely if ever be hung in the balance based on EMTB education. How often is that even true with EMTP? Do I wish that AAS was a minimum standard for EMS? Sure. But until it is then I believe that counseling people to do what's right is great, but to chastise them for not spending thousands of dollars to get an education that will likely give them an $8-$10/hr job is arrogant and unrealistic. We have to make the changes that we can without chasing people from the advice that they need...For every person that tries to convince them that education is important they'll have 15 hosemonkeys telling them that it's ridiculous and a waste of time. That it's experience and machismo that's vital, education is just one of the silly hoops that heroes are forced to jump through. There are two very real camps in my experience where education is concerned. And those that advocate for it are the significant minority. I believe that this person talking to the fireman neighbor, or EMTB cousin and giving the advice given here will be laughed at, welcomed to the 'realistic camp' and likely be lost forever as an 'education recruit.' We need to hold onto the advice seekers as long as we can. And be careful to give advice that's realistic in the real world...Or so I think... Dwayne And yet you've been in EMS for over 10 years without earning any of those degrees, or in fact passing any of those classes, right? I would like to think that I have a brain, limited and pickled as it may be, and yet I disagree... Please explain how your vehement "no brainer' opinions are not arrogant and hypocritical given your personal EMS history. We really need to pull this thread back into the 'no bullshit' zone... Dwayne

I'm leaning really hard towards his acidotic state causing a fluid shift...it just keeps nagging me but I don't have the info in my brain to make the argument and quick Google searches between other stuff is bearing no fruit...Maybe one of the smart people can look at it from this angle? Dwayne

Hmmmm.... It initially sounded like a R sided intubation, but the tube was retracted without relief. It does sound as if the R lobes are filling and then spilling over into the the L perhaps. Other than tumors, as mentioned by the Doc, I can't imagine what is doing that. Unfortunately the xrays are wasted on me. I'm also haunted by the name of the thread and am confident that it is directing us towards an answer..I'm just not sure what the hell that answer would be! Excellent scenario...Thanks for taking the time to do it! Dwayne

If you've not had the full semester college level courses Bio 201/Bio202 then there is absolutely no question that this is the direction that you should take. None whatsoever. You may need some prerequisites before you'll be allowed to take those as well...get them. You are going to see that you are not really doing any true clinical medicine until you taken those....Trust me...you'll see. Dwayne

With your desire to continue on to Medic I can't imagine that you'd even want to be part of such a system. It will likely do you little good and has the possibility of doing you harm. Motivation as a stumbling block to being able to participate. Yeah....see ya. But, very few will take your desire to be a flight medic seriously when you are still at the infant level of EMS. You have many years before you'll even be considered for a flight position, and most will quit or fail long before then. And in what capacity would you have been allowed to teach EMS there? EMS teachers with no EMS experience? That's pathologic. Where does your desire to be a volly stem from? Maybe it's best to just work on your paid gig instead? Dwayne

Hopefully what you mean is that you've seen me argue against their logic to hold EMS back. I truly have no right to disrespect those with this opinion as it was my intention to take an AMR 7 month part time course until I was convinced differently here. Flaming has not received a single free pass from me, as you may have noticed, and yet he continues to post. I respect that. Perhaps it's my personal feeling, and thus off in the ditch, that the negatives should be reserved for those purposely giving poor advice or troll behavior? That is my point I guess. I don't feel that Flaming was 'rallying' against anything. You've seen that his history is with the fire dept, and our history here shows us that Fire has no respect for higher education, so why would you expect his opinions to be any different? He seemed to be, at least to me, to be saying, "you don't know what this is all about yet. Get your feet wet first and then decide if you want to invest your time in higher education." That seems like sound advice. Is it what many of us that have been here forever would like to see? No. But was it purposely detrimental? I don't think so. I could be wrong, but I don't believe that I was any part of the 'previous poster' stuff with Flaming. I get that. But was it his intention to purposely give poor advice or was he stating his opinion based on his experience? I equate the negative button with the 'Stink Eye'. Something that you hit someone with because they are simply being purposely shitty. You, the same as me, and many others, should understand that learning to post here has a significant learning curve. We need to not (in the words of Cheech and Chong of long ago) whack people's pee pees simply for mis-stepping, right? He started off in a tough spot, and yet instead of running away like many continued to post. I believe that if we're to be good guardians of the City that we encourage people to post, not only if we agree with them, but especially if we disagree with them as those arguments are what teach us and make us stronger. I'm guessing you've seen me be soundly handled on one or two topics but I can remember very few negatives. People simply beat me up with logic. :-) Just a thought brother. You and I went a few rounds, if i remember right, and I think I do, but I don't remember ever giving you a negative simply because I believed that you were posting from your beliefs, even though I thought them bullshit. Negatives should be kept, in my opinion, for the troll posts, the hateful posts, not for posts that we simply don't like..no matter the reason....see? Of course, this is all just my opinion... Dwayne

Man...it has truly become impossible to take you seriously any more. You argue by implication, post thread after thread with simply a linked article, without comment, as if you've done us some kind favor by gifting us with your 'idea', post after post of whiny content without making any significant effort to clearly outline a point or a solution to what irks you. What is it that you hope to accomplish here? Yeah, not really his way to be clear and assertive. I can't imagine who he may be speaking of, but I do have to admit that I have witnessed the world become a better place after some folks get punched in the head....It's how I learned that not everyone at a party wanted to hear every......single....thought that goes through my head...and look at what a prize I turned into! If you figure out who he's offended by let me know and I'll run over an punt his/her testicles/ovaries into the ozone..I like to helpful like that... Dwayne