JPINFV

"Mutlu was traveling on a a "buddy pass," a standby travel voucher that JetBlue employees give to friends, from New York to San Diego on Feb. 16, and returned to New York on Feb. 23, the lawsuit said." "The pilot told him 1 1/2 hours into the five-hour flight that he would have to relinquish the seat to the flight attendant, court papers say. But the pilot said that Mutlu could not sit in the jump seat because only JetBlue employees were permitted to sit there, the lawsuit said." This article has a bit more information in it. http://wcbstv.com/local/jetblue.gokhan.mutlu.2.722250.html

Congrats on becoming a Licensed Paramedic. If it makes you feel better the first thing I thought of when I saw the title was "lumbar puncture."

To be clear, I have no qualms with the author or the author's text. It is a very well written article. My problem is that there's a need for an article like this as there didn't seem to be anything earth shatteringly new or unique in the article. Things like proper documentation should be taught in class and refined and QA'ed by the EMS agency, not by a column in a magazine.

To be entirely fair, the article is written in a manner to suggest that she was only a first responder with a NYC ambulance responding as well. Albeit, it could also be argued that there would have been a paramedic ambulance staffed in the area if it hadn't been for a volunteer agency covering the area (I don't get the entire "let's mix 911 responses between 15 different paid and volunteer agencies" that NYC seems to run). Also, to be fair, I've heard my own pulse when taking a blood pressure before, but it was never in a manner that I could mistaken between my own and my patient's. Also, how can you miss that a patient stopped breathing? It sounds like it's more of a provider needing to put her big-girl panties on and make treatment decisions past 15 LPM NRB than a volunteer problem. Being a low call volume volunteer makes the problem worsen, but isn't an exact cause.

Well, to be completely pedantically nitpicky, if the hypoxia is caused by a shunt, then increasing the FIO2 won't help any. Also the efficacy of supplemented FIO2 decreases as a V/Q mismatch gets worse.

Quick question about Atropine, what's the point for the 3 mg limit vs a size limit? Is it just that if it's not working by 3 mg, it's probably not going to work at all?

To be fair, though, the "assessment" in a traditional SOAP note is a Dx or DDX with what is generally thought of as an assessment going into the objective part of a SOAP note.

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/shared-gen...racheotomy.html

I concur as I bore witness to that thread.

How do you know her name is Shirley?

Ok, I've read through the thread for a second time today, and as before, I don't see anyone telling her to just quit. I see people telling her to be honest. I see people telling her that she will still have to meet basic standards regardless of any accommodations that her school or the testers (NREMT or state tests) make for her in terms of reading and writing. What I do not see is people telling her to just get out. As far as wanting to help people, there are other ways to help people. A want and willingness to help means very little in EMS if you lack the ability to administer basic care. Learning disabilities, depending on the type and severity, have the possibility of making it so a would-be provider lacks the ability to meet the minimum requirements. In a situation like this, it is much better to provider a person with a realistic assessment, options, and recommendations (as an example, seeking help from resources on campus if need be) than blow smoke and have a person waste their time and money running around in circles. If this is 'too harsh' or 'too negative,' then all I have to say is "too bad." Life is not fair nor is it kind. Life is like poker. We all get dealt a different hand in life, but what matters the most is what we choose to do with the cards. A pair of twos will beat a flush if the flush folds. The length of the course matters greatly. The simple fact is that 99.9999% of EMT-B courses, regardless of calendar or hour length, lack any sort of academic rigor. If EMT-B course is going to OMGWTFBBQ you, especially if it's due to a learning disability, then paramedic class isn't going to be easy in any sense of the word. Little less when a provider goes and increases their education (which all providers should) by taking college level courses like anatomy, physiology, biochem, and chemistry. Any one who thinks that an EMT-B course is the end all, be all of prehospital medical knowledge is a fool and a danger to their patients. Again, I imagine that the original poster would like a fair and honest opinion, and that's what I've seen being given in this thread.

I'm a little confused here. Outside of a well needed "For the love of all that is good and holy, turn your caps lock off" comment, there wasn't really anything negative posted. The comments were generally study harder, seek help if you have a learning disability, and maybe EMS isn't the right field. Let's face some music here, EMS is not for everyone. Neither is fire fighting, nursing, medicine, engineering, singing, or any other career. If I was asking advice, I'd rather have honest advice like what has mentioned here than a bunch of Rah-Rah smoke blown up my butt. So, could you please point out the "mean" posts since the only ad hominem posts I've seen here so far have been yours?

Who ya gonna call?

The funny part about that is that the contents on the floor of an ambulance are probably much more dangerous than anything that patient might be able to do with the number of people on scene/responding.

If you're (generic) walking around the hospital with a pair of used gloves on (if you've touched a patient with the gloves on, then the gloves are used), then you are a part of the problem, not the solution.

There's areas worse than LA. Just look at Orange County for an example. :twisted:

I think one of the problems with building a list like that is that, not being intimately knowledgeable of all 50 states, it's hard to tell what has been phased out and is only listed because no one has gotten around to changing the laws governing prehospital care. It's very possible that the Ambulance Attendant level only exists now in theory with zero practicing providers. If this is true, and there's a source available, please feel free to post it.

Meh, since this was bumped anyways. All the state certs (fully sourced) on one handy web page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_med...levels_by_state

Without a picture, would it be more of a wedge than an impalement? Based on the description, it sounds like the foot either inverted or everted (really doesn't matter for the basis of this discussion) and when the bone penetrated the skin, the boot slid into the interosseous space. This isn't exactly a penetration since the boot didn't break anything itself. Now if the boot is doing something useful, like say, preventing the bones from reducing themselves (albeit it sounds like the patient was going to have some fun with osteomyelitis regardless), it doesn't sound like this case fits the text book reasons for not removing an impaled object (tamponade and preventing additional injuries).

I don't know how it works for associates, but with bachelor's degree, there is a requirement that the last X amount of units before graduation must be completed at that institution. You might want to hold back another term till you finish the degree requirements.

Same joke, different person http://www.emtcity.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=11935

I don't think there's enough information here to determine if either the original call (car vs pedestrian) or the still alarm (kid meets fence) should be transported. A part of me wants to tell the kid and the kid's parents to "Buck up Nancy, find some paper towels and drive him yourself." While head and face wounds tend to bleed more than normal wounds, it they generally don't approach life threatening.

There's a second flip side here as well. Are there negativity and overly snippy posts? Sure. Heck, I tend to be rather blunt when discussing thing, but I'd expect people to be blunt with me. I'd rather learn or confirm something than have a rebuttal sugar coated because someone's concerned about putting my panties in a bunch. At the same time, though, there are plenty of people who take any disagreement as a personal attack, especially when they put out an idea with no attempt to explain, prove, or justify their view. Saying something along "We should be allowed to do XYZ" is pointless and a waste of bandwidth without explaining why XYZ is superior to other options or why it is needed. Leaving it to stand as is is a recipe for a, possible unjustified, harsh response that tends to get people upset because their 'views aren't respected.'