Eydawn

Ggghaaaah! That gave *me* a case of the creepy itchies and I'm not even in the same state!! lol... This happened to a friend of mine who was another medic at the camp I worked at this year... fortunately they were both dudes 15 y/o male: "Uh... well... (whispers) my balls hurt and I don't know what to do" Medic: "Were you around some attractive female?" 15 y/o male: "(whispers) yea" Medic: "Let me guess... got a little excited?" 15 y/o male: "(whispers) yea" Medic: Go to sleep and then "remedy the problem" in the morning. 15 y/o male: "(really embarrassed) ok" Kid comes back the next day... 15 y/o male: "I feel great!" Medic: ROFL after the kid leaves Wendy NREMT-B

Sugar Crocfer. That just sounds like... I don't quite know... the first name works... Hmm...

This is always a touchy situation in terms of your judgement. Since you're not the person, you really don't know what's going on inside their head. However, if the person has confided a suicidal intent to you, you do have to do whatever you can to help that person. Perhaps a more focused intervention is what is needed here if the person is already seeing a psychologist. Unfortunately, if you're smart, you can out-talk your shrink and make them believe you're just fine... when what you really need to do is lay it all out honestly. How has this person's behavior changed recently, if at all? Any crises recently at work, or in this individual's personal life that you know of? I look at it this way. If you do have to step in and do something drastic, it's accepting that person's possible anger towards you as a fair trade for them staying alive in a situation in which they might not otherwise. Alive and pissed off is still alive, and in my own experience, it's been worth it because the anger has been temporary. Good luck!! Wendy NREMT-B

You left out my favorite! I call it the RIG!!! As of this summer I call it the box b/c that's what all my co-workers at the camp called the Elbert FD units. I've also called it a bus, and the giant POS over that way... Wendy

Just a couple of points. I know what I believe. I know what makes me believe it unequivocally. However, because I have established a relationship with a higher power that makes sense to me, it does not necessarily mean that you must also adhere to the same tenets and belief system that works for me. We're all different; at the core, it is not about how many rosaries you say, or how many devotional pilgrimages you make to Mecca, or how many spoons you juggle in awe of the flying spaghetti monster... it's about the personal relationship between you and the higher power as you percieve it. Some people call it God. Some people call it Allah. Some people call it nature, or love, or any other number of names; some people have no concrete word that goes with it at all. Some people feel no higher presence in the world. And that's just fine. And really... since I'm human, I can't concretely prove, nor do I have the right to say, that my system of belief is *better* than yours or the *right* one... because in the end the joke might be on me. Therefore, I listen to what everyone has to say (and you wouldn't believe how many similarities there are among the differences..) because I don't have the right to shut anyone out. Doesn't mean I have to wholeheartedly accept everything I hear- but I can respect it and try to understand it as much as possible. Doesn't mean my belief is any weaker or stronger based on what anyone else tells me. It's irrelevant, because it's not about anyone else. It's about what I believe, what I feel, what I know and understand... and with some people, I am able to share that, and with others I'm not. On the subject of evolution, please take the time to read Wonderful Life (I can't remember the author at present)- a narrative about the Burgess Shale Fauna. That may clarify some misunderstandings about evolution as a concept (which many people, even 2nd year biology undergrad students) might hold. That said... who said that the existence of evolution disproves the existence of God, that God disproves the existence of evolution, or that the two have nothing to do with each other at all? Perhaps evolution is the mechanism established by God to bring about change within the world... anyone who appreciates any sense of a complex being at all could not hope to think that something could be created as static (eg 2 little dalmatians and 2 little scorpions exactly as they are today....) More later. Wendy NREMT-B Roman Catholic

Holy Poo poo indeed!! Whoa!! Amazing what things will turn into... like the "dizzy" call I went on where a pit bull came out from behind the couch. "Well, hey there, pooch... oh $hit... guys? That's a pit bull... Um.. can you lock you dog in the other room please... " Generally try to acquaint myself with pooches; I read dog body language pretty well, but I don't mess with pit bulls. Wendy NREMT-B CO EMT-B MI EMT-B

Surprise surprise! Good thing the kid's healthy and all. How's mom dealing with it? How could you not know you're pregnant, that far along, is what I want to know! Are people really not in tune with their bodies? Wendy NREMT-B CO EMT-B MI EMT-B

Who puts this $h!t on the internet anyway? That poor kid... and who keeps $%&*( filming after the initial wups, got stuck in the hoop moment? That poor kid writhing around in pain is not F%&*() amusing at all. I can see watching the initial part... but jeebus. Makes me heartsick. Wendy NREMT-B MI EMT-B CO EMT-B

Excellent... that's funny! And so true. Most of the women I've met who read are far sharper than those who "read" (magazines, you know what I mean, Cosmo, Vogue, etc).... or those who just watch the boob tube. Wendy

And now you can legally say "bus" when referring to one's rig. That throws that old argument *right* out the window! Wendy NREMT-B CO EMT-B MI EMT-B

Two words: Freakin' AWESEOME. That bus looks incredibly roomy and good to work in. We'll have to see how it works out in practice. Should be good for soccer (football) game riots and explosions... looks like you could get tangled up with your partners, perhaps, if you weren't practicing good communication. I'd divide the thing up into zones, say if I was working with a team of 4-6 responders.... if you need something from the back zone, just sing out and get it passed to you, don't get in each other's way. Great idea! Love that it lowers itself 4 inches, too, and has an obese equipped cot. Somebody was thinking! Wendy NREMT-B CO EMT-B MI EMT-B

Ak, you need to look in the mirror again.. I don't think you possess that anatomy. If you do, joke's on all of us, would you like to come to Crystal Ball here at the college this weekend? Lots of tall hairy ladies at this one... (Cross dress dance). Wendy NREMT-B CO EMT-B MI EMT-B

Maybe they can use footage in recruitment videos! It sounds like a nifty idea that they'll need to fine tune some more. Seriously, better armor and other uses for this money... but now that they've got it going, don't just make it wasted money. Do something useful with it. Wendy NREMT-B CO EMT-B MI EMT-B

Oh, I agree, Michael.. I think it's terrible that it's taboo for men to express emotion. I think it leads to all sorts of problems because frustration/sadness is repressed. I was merely remarking I have seen young boys cry more than young girls... Dust had seen the opposite, and I just threw it in there. I can't wait to get to the camp. Homesick and scraped knees sounds so much more appealing to me than the drama I've had spring out at me this last term :toothy5: Even puking kids would be better! :pukeleft: :pukeright: Wendy NREMT-B CO EMT-B MI EMT-B

Damn! Thanks, Dust. That's where I'm headed as well, I think I'll print this off and keep it handy. This is what I've done mostly before.. just not as a full time camp medic but at shorter campouts. By the way, I've seen little boys weep a lot more than the girls on some of the splinters and stuff. But then again, Webelos are still likkle tykes. Wendy NREMT-B

Last year there was one asthma attack, one traumatic seizure, and one severe knee injury related to the tennis courts. The asthma attack was me, the traumatic injury was someone in my tae kwon do class and the tennis courts, I have no idea... The 6 this year have been a severe illness, a fall, 3 alcohol related runs, and not sure on the last one. No idea how many Western's gotten. Wendy NREMT-B CO EMT-B MI EMT-B

14/20 Strange!

Holy crap! What college towns did you work? I wanna know how you got so lucky to have it be so quiet! Last year we had 3 rigs run to my small liberal arts campus of 1000 folks... (one was for me, but that's another story, lol). This year we've had at least 6. Western Michigan University, right next door to us, has had several that I've heard of; they're a large state school. I live 5 minutes from the post that covers our side of town; they get their butts run off at all hours (I've started identifying who's on shift by the way the siren is used) and sometimes the BLS company gets thrown into the 911 system because everyone else is running. Dust, I'm struggling with the idea of starting a campus response team, and I see your point- would we get to do much more than blood pressures, and nurse along the "I drinked too much and my RA's not allowed to do nuffin" characters? I don't know. I do know that our health center is only open at limited hours which are not very conducive to getting effective health care for non-life threatening emergencies (because the 911 rigs respond really quickly, we have a good record with keeping folks alive). I believe it might help us as a campus to have volunteers who are willing to respond with ace bandages and ice packs, or are willing to sit up in the staffroom with the drunk who's not sick enough to go to the ED... because his/her friends are too drunk to effectively monitor them... it would give those of us who end up doing it anyway a chance to have something to put on our resumes in the future, and make sure that something is available to students. Then again.. whackerism could crop up easily, especially with who I have to work with at the moment. Your points are quite valid.. it sounds like Penn State has it doing well though. Wendy NREMT-B CO EMT-B MI EMT-B

Well, Uncle Dusty, be real careful, huh? I know you'll perform excellent patient care, just stay safe out there and drop us a line every so often. We'll be waitin' for ya when you come home. Wendy

That's too funny! The staff with two snakes is the symbol for commerce- it has to do with some Greek deity's staff. The single staff with a serpent has a lot of ideas as to where it came from. Staff of moses, staff of Hippocrates... personally, I think the most likely one is the idea that there were parasitic worms that they had to wind out on sticks, hence the sign of a serpenty thing around a stick. EWW! Wendy NREMT-B CO EMT-B MI EMT-B

Here's what I do. On the way to any call, at any speed, no matter where I'm seated, I'm buckled in. During a call: If I am taking vitals, and doing something that I don't need to be super close to the pt for (eg, taking a history on a non critical patient) then I am on the bench seat, belted in. If I'm playing go-fer, I'm in the captain's chair, belted in when I'm not fetching whatever needs to be fetched. If I'm doing compressions, I'm not belted in- but I do try to maintain 3 points of contact with ambulance surface- feeet, knees and hip or head if possible... same with any other interventions that require me to be moving around the compartment. Seated as much as possible; belted in as much as possible. My sense of balance isn't supreme; I'm not a champion ambulance surfer. I try to safeguard myself as much as I possibly can. Wendy NREMT-B CO EMT-B MI EMT-B

Yes, they are "vital signs"... but so is an rbc count, if you want to think about it hard enough. The more pertinent one is a bgl. That shows you something definite- this person has too little, just enough, or way too much sugar. That, in the case of too little, you can do something about. Problem with SPO[sub:b5518071f0]2[/sub:b5518071f0]'s is they are subject to error (think carbon monoxide poisoning) and too many techs will try to treat the machine and not the patient. Is it a good number to have if you know the context and how to interpret it correctly? Yup. Some folks aren't real familiar with it though. Wendy NREMT-B CO EMT-B MI EMT-B

Working with kids a lot of the time in the scouts, rapport is definitely high up on my list. If I can't get the kid to calm down, I'm going to have issues with treatment efficacy... not to mention a screaming kiddo on my hands, yuck! Working EMS, rapport makes a lot of difference. Some people are hard to establish a rapport with, others are easy.. but once you've got it, they're more likely to tell you information they might not have otherwise... some people are ashamed of certain medical conditions or possible issues (pregnancy) and don't really mention it, but if they trust you, they're more likely to bring it up without you having to fish so hard. Wendy NREMT-B CO EMT-B MI EMT-B

Unfortunately, they didn't require my basic class to do any essay format written assignments. More's the pity, I say, papers make you think more in depth about your subject; far better than just coasting along with multiple choice tests. I think it should be mandatory in every class, especially since documentation is one of the most important things we do on a daily basis. If you don't know how to spell correctly and communicate in both a legible and intellegible manner, you're in trouble. Most papers should require extra reading, as well, instead of just regurgitating a rewritten text section. Wendy NREMT-B CO EMT-B MI EMT-B

46% Dixie. Barely in Yankeedom. I think it might have something to do with Dad being from DC... That and I'm always yelling "Y'ALL get OVER HERE! Come on boys, I feel like the damn den mother again!" (When addressing my posse of guy friends... gotta love college boys!) Wendy NREMT-B CO EMT-B MI EMT-B