JPINFV

Since you keep dragging that out like it's as simple as lining up two categories, I'll ask you. Does that mean that if a company does SNF -> emergency room runs constantly [everything from, "It's a holiday and we're short staffed, so we need to get people out of here" BS runs to "Wow, patient XYZ is barely breathing, let's set up a BLS transport to the local ER"], that it is a part of the EMS system. Likewise, if your company does both 911 and transport, are you a part of the EMS system if the only reason you see a 911 call is because someone called in sick once 4 months ago?

No, but I do think that a majority of transport heavy services offer primarily BLS transport/response. Of course my view is skewed because I grew up and worked in the heart of fire-based EMS land where there were no paramedics outside of the fire department. I do believe, though, that in a real emergency [as opposed to a non-emergent SNF -> ER, BLS or ALS] that the facility should be calling 911 to get the closest ALS unit available, and not an ambulance company directly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Catch_a_Predator

You know, I actually kinda of miss fighting the liberals/socialists.

Not in my basic class. If you did, you would have had a good chance to meet this nice fellow.

She left the scene as in 1. windows fogged up 2. slow down AND pull to the right [on a residential street!] 3. hit car parked on street 4. freak out 5. drive to school without even leaving a note 6. Dragged back to scene by police who found her looking at the damage while parked at the high school that is less than a block from where we used to live.

Besides sexism and age discrimination? Anytime you see people proposing restrictions on old drivers you see the AARP come out in force. Maybe we need something like that! As far as my sister, the adrenalin had more to do with her deciding to leave the scene and go to school. She was lucky that the car's owner took pity on her and refused to press charges for hit and run. Also, purely technically speaking, an underage driver would have to be someone that is too young to legally drive. If a 16 year old licensed driver is "underage" then we need to come up with a new word for an 18 y/o drinking alcohol. A 9 year old would generally be considered an underage driver, for example. That said, I do, as a rule, agree with the idea that of graduated licenses and that you should have some experience driving a normal vehicle before you are eligible to get behind the wheel of an emergency vehicle. /insurance dropped in half to 100/month for full coverage when I turned 21.

Well, if we want to generalize, we could always bring out the "women drivers" pictures. /never had an accident or moving violation //My sister totaled her first car before she turned 18 ///her first accident was her vs. parked car.

Are you sure that it is more of not wanting to deal with the 911 system, or a silent prayer for a pair of idiot EMTs who doesn't know what they're looking at? I'm saying that because if a basic is on scene of a critical SNF patient, then they should be requesting ALS [transport time dependent, of course], so the end result would still be the same [ALS on scene]. Before anyone asks, yes I've gotten the thick accented "Patient very sick, you take patient now" speech several times, and had no problems calling 911 for a medic over the facilities objections if I felt the patient required it.

When are you planning on coming down here again?

So, why don't you come over here, get into a leadership position, and do something about it? Fostering change is so much better than bitching about it from the other side of the border.

Your mom? Ohh, BUUURRRRRNNN!!!!!1111oneoneeleven1 just kiding. Probably the government.

No. I'm here for the PATIENT. If my partner's behavior negatively impacts patient care in a way outside of ignorance [ignorant is not knowing any better and, thus, fixable], then why should I not insure that corrective measure are taken? I'd rather be a rat and go to management than sit on my hands and be negligent.

That reminds me of the story about the star of the movie "Thirteen" wasn't able to buy tickets after it came out because it was rated R.

/me waiting for the lawsuit when someone's little snow flake comes home in a body bag after being out playing with the pretty lights and noise makers.

Since when did fire fighters become my brothers and sisters? Fire fighting=putting water of hot stuff. Firefighting!=medical care. Just as EMS=medical care. EMS!=fire fighting. Why not send an ambulance to every police call, just in case? After all, if you are joining EMS and the fire service at the hip because of "public service" then shouldn't law enforcement get to join in too? [hyperboil] Here's an idea, fire, EMS, and LE should be dispatched to ALL 911 calls, regardless of complaint, just IN CASE something happens. After all, we're all "brothers and sisters." [/hyperboil] [rant] [Family guy reference] You know what really grinds my gears? [/family guy reference] This whole "brothers and sisters" bull crud. "Oh, golly gee wiz, you shouldn't report your coworker to management. After all, why would you sell out your brothers and sisters like that? You know what, I've got 1 sister [she's married, sorry guys], and you're not her. I don't owe my so caled "brothers and sisters" anything just because they decided to go into the same field. Just because you want to roll the dice and get injured doing something stupid doesn't mean that you should feel that you have the right to haul my butt out for that 1/1000 chance that something happens. I'm sure that the fire department wouldn't be happy if they were dispatched to all EMS calls just in case fatty McFatpants is the patient and my partner and I lack the strength and/or willingness to destroy our back lifting the patient. Afterall, you never know when Mr/s McFatpants is going to be the patient, so they should get dispatched to ALL EMS calls. I'm sure that they'd be willing to back up their "brothers and sisters" after all. Furthermore, since the term "brothers and sisters" was brought up, again, I will say that I owe you NOTHING. If you do something STUPID [stupid and ignorant are two COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS. Ignorance can be fixed, stupidity can't] and dangerous [to your, mine, the patient's, or the public's health], you're status as a "brother or sister" does not and should never constitute any sort of immunity if management was not there. Now, to be clear, if there's a legit chance of someone being injured, by all means request support. A "legit" chance does not include a bum reporting an oder nor does every fire, including structure fires depending on the circumstances, require an EMS response. God, for the amount of fire fighters who hate EMS, they sure seem to want us there to hold their hands for them. [/rant]

But I thought that in fire based systems everything except full arrests and really kewl traumas were BLS. After all, you don't want to keep the firefighters from missing the latest episode of Saved.

If only you could use this on your patient

^ Whelen Sirens: turn to "rad" and hold down the manual button. If both lights come on, you're good. Of course no one else knows about it so that aren't impressed when I would complain that one of the siren speakers were out.

I'm scared of this [spoil:70b3dcdbde][/spoil:70b3dcdbde]

I see your Bruce Almighty and raise you a Dogma with bonus picks and who can forget the muse?

What good is an experience if you don't have a base to build upon? The simple fact is that the 120 hours (on average, and no, I'm not impressed with anyone's 150 hour course, it's still not enough] doesn't give you enough of a basic or applied medical education to understand what's going on. Can you truly understand why cyanide, for example, is bad if you don't understand biochemistry? Same question regarding the much more likely CO poisoning. Can you truly understand how cardiac medication works without physiology and neurobiology? These are things that can't be provided in depth in a 120 hour course. Sure, you can learn "see this, push this because x" talking to a paramedic while working as a basic, but you won't understand the nuisances of it. Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting releasing medics from school with no or limited clinical time, just that they should have more. I wonder what would happen actually if the medic exam was multi stepped. Pass part 1, get to go and do clinicals. Pass part two and you become licensed. I'm also not impressed with the "shortage of medics" claim because there's a shortage of other health care and medical professionals and you don't see them compromising their standards to fill the shortage.

Yep, and 911 companies never hire people who are slobs.

Why not, car rental companies already do it. The only difference is that there isn't an AARP for young people.

If the system is so great, how come you don't see prerequisites about lower level work in medical or nursing schools? There's nothing stopping paramedic schools from requiring/being required to offer longer clinical periods. Several of the things you mentioned apply to physicians too. Physicians have to know when/how to call for help [consults], deal with other personal [RNs, RTs, other physicians, etc]. Yes, their standards are much higher [supply of seats vs demand for seats is a part of this], but the education and clinical time is much longer too, hence they don't seem to have that problem. Therefore, extending the education and clinical time should overcome any difficulties from eliminating the EMT-B experience requirement.