JPINFV

So then Boston Fire broke the law (when doesn't Boston FD break the law?) when they gave the funerals for Cahill and Payne last year? Alternatively, does Boston FD have an old apparatus that they dedicate to funerals?

I highly doubt that there's any law that prohibits an off duty ambulance from transporting a deceased provider for memorial purposes any more than there being a law authorizing off duty fire engines from transporting dead bodies of fire suppression employees.

Well, naturally, exhaust fans and AC on full blast. But there's only so much that those can do. Have you ever had the pleasure of transporting a patient with a rectal tube?

Option 3. It's an ambulance, so it has oxygen and NRBs. Who said that I can't throw an NRB on myself?

Sure. I'll agree with fining abusers as soon as we can insure that those doing the fining are able to make proper medical decisions without falling back on a flow chart or medical control. I don't think a 9 month medic course will be able to accomplish that.

Ahh, if only management felt that way. It wasn't the crew's duty to ensure that the unit was stocked, it was management's responsibility. It was the crew's duty to check the truck and report any missing equipment to management per county EMS. I ended up going rounds with management over this since my view is that certain responsibilities, such ensuring a stocked unit, are laid on the crews by the nature of the work that can not be transfered to someone outside of the crew.

The company I used to work for did something similar where they sealed the cabinets with the same sort of plastic lock found on hospital crash carts. The problem, though, was that the vehicle service techs were unreliable at best. After a few times of finding things like an open OB kit or an adult BVM with pediatric mask, I stopped trusting the seals to ensure that everything was there. While no patient care was harmed by the lapses, there's a big difference between hospital work and prehospital work. If something is missing in the hospital, there's a central supply area, pharmacy, and other floors where equipment can be obtained quickly if need be. If my BVM is missing from the sealed and checked cabinet, then I don't have a BVM and I lack the ability to rapidly quickly acquire one.

Sounds like California. Speed limit 65, traffic is doing 75-80, and the highway patrol is passing you.

To be completely fair, most of the BP cuffs I've seen give a margin of error of +/-3 mm Hg. In reality, you need a swing of 6 mm Hg to show that a patient has a different blood pressure (ex. a BP of 120/x can shown as 117 (minus 3) or 123 (plus 3) as an extreme example. Hence both 117 and 123 can be interpreted as the same pressure)

Either do it right, or don't do it at all.

Why not place the splint on what ever you are moving the patient to and then move the patient onto the splint and gurney/scoop/LSB combination? I agree that there is generally little point in moving the patient to splint then moving the splinted patient onto the gurney. You're still going to have to transfer the patient at the hospital anyways. It's reasons like this that if I'm at a commercial care facility (assisted living, skilled nursing, etc) and my patient is in a wheel chair I'll grab a linen sheet anyways. Place the linen on the gurney then transfer patient to gurney and now you can use the draw sheet to transfer at the hospital.

Pfft, that violates the first rule of EMS, check for ABCs. You know, Ambulate Before Carry.

Unless there's a medical necessity (either from an operational standpoint [e.g. coverage] or a treatment stand point), I have zero problem taking a patient to their preferred hospital.

And to the people who found it offensive, After all, everyone's a little bit...

Welcome to Southern California. I've heard the fire medics call for a "cosmetic backboard."

Pft, your right. There's no need for CPAP, 12 lead interpretation (acquisition and interpretation are two different things), pharmaceuticals, etc. Just good old first aid and fast transport is all everyone needs, right?

LaCo runs a good show? lol wut?

From what I've seen and heard of this company, I don't doubt that they are providing the proper equipment. Any private company that has it's own patient simulator has enough money for jackets. Of course there's always that fine line between things that the company provides (e.x. jackets) and things that the employees provide (e.x. shoes).

You answered 32 out of 33 correctly — 96.97 % Average score for this quiz during November: 77.5% Average score: 77.5%

Well, it looks like I just landed a part time job with a company north of Boston while I finish up my lab thesis, I have my next big challenge. Coming from Southern California, land where the lows rarely reach past the mid 50s, I'm faced with working in a place where the daytime highs might never get past freezing. Does anyone have any tips with, from a provider's standpoint, any tips for dealing with working in cold weather.

I think you're missing the point. The federal government lacks the power, for the most part, to regulate EMS. They can do general mandates via the 'power of the purse,' but regulating EMS based off of the interstate commerce clause is a bit of a stretch. The federal government can't just run things because they feel like it or because it's a good idea. See court cases like US v Lopez for an excellent example of a "common sense" law being ruled unconstitutional.

I won't argue with that, but it's nice to have at least a little trauma exposure. Due purely to limited exposure, I'd have to say that the calls where I'm the weakest at is trauma calls, even if the treatment/assessment options are limited.

Of course why would you do CPR for an hour anyways? All you're doing is delivering a corpse to the hospital.

^ The ironic thing is that the place to get the best patient care experience is actually with the IFT services. Nursing homes will do just about anything to avoid calling 911, so the IFTs regularly get calls for "non-emergent" (misnomer about 1/4 of the time) EMT-B transport to the ER which are actually quite serious. If I had a dollar for every time I transported a "congested" patient emergently, I'd be pretty well off. Also the CCT work is a good experience and gives excellent exposure to RNs and RTs. Of course the down side is that the majority of the calls will be hospital discharges and dialysis calls and very little trauma experience.

Under what part of the constitution are you going to justify the federal government taking control of EMS away from the states?