boeingb13

http://www.firefighternation.com/video/vid...55:Video:886263

http://www.firefighternation.com/video/vid...55:Video:891358 Both of those are to the same video, I wanted to make sure I posted both just in case, this is a video of police, and paramedics more concerned with being videotaped, then with their pt. First link removed due to firewall alerts....AK

http://www.geocities.com/nyerrn/h/ekg.htm

http://www.geocities.com/nyerrn/rx/acls.htm#medic I wanted to post this site, because I think it will be a great resource site for a few of you. This is one of the better sites I have found in a long time. I hope you all gain form this site, or are able to use it for refreshing.

At my station we do bring our own dinners and lunches, we rarely eat out, and I agree with the fact that the public education will take a major lose do to cut backs on leaving the station on non call related trips. And there are stations that tae advantage of their jobs by driving all over the place. i just hope the few who are trying to make a difference dont take all the abuse over the ones who are taking advantage.

If you all remember after 9-11, fire/rescue/ems were 3 of the most loved professions, now with the crunch of gas prices and a ever declining economy and taxes in some states being raised we are becoming less and less liked. Here in my area (Florida) we have crews being openly verbally assaulted in grocery stores and restaraunts. By assaulted I mean, " why are you all here why are you not working or sitting at the station". "Why are you all driving fast with lights on wasting fuel that we are paying for" "Why is there 2 fire trucks at the same residence, wasting our tax money on pay and fuel". Our Chief informed us they are now fielding more than ten calls a day of complaints asking why we are not laying people off, and staying put in the station until a call is recieved. Apparently we are not allowed to leave to refuel,shop for groceries, go out to eat in our territory, or respond code 3 to a call. Due to the rising fuel costs. We all work extremely hard to achieve our certifications to do these careers we love, we do all we can to preserve the lives of the citizens in our communities as well as their property, and all of that is forgoten when money gets tight in the community. and with all of this we still respond as quick as possible and still give the best care we can, because despite what people say and what they do, this is what we love to do.

I thought this was a good article, some of you may have read it already, it talks about the people who call 911 constantly and how it taxes the system and takes units out of service. http://www.emsresponder.com/article/articl...n=1&id=7508

After asking paramedic's and emt's from the 4 different private ambulance companies here I have found that none of them require more than new hires to ride more than 2 8 hour days with a crew and on those days they do very little, really nothing more than helping load and unload the stretcher and the paper work. So my question is this, how long should new hire emt's and paramedic's be evaluated to see what exactly their skill level is, how their patient care is, and that they have retained the necessary skills to competently do the job. My follow up question is, how does your service gauge their new people, how do they make sure they have hired a good emt/paramedic, because it seems to me, here, they wait on the mistakes as opposed to weeding out the people that are not going to do a good job.

From what i've seen out of the different schools in my town, which there is a large selection for emt training. Is the staff the school hires will dictate alot of your training, if your in a school where every teacher is a firefighter they will more than likely gear the teaching towrds the way they operate, like wise with ER nurses, and ems only paramedics. You'll learn the curriculum there will just be a slant on it torwards what the teacher/teachers career is. Thats just what i've seen, everywhere is different.

The last private ambulance company i worked for during their orientation told you flat out, the patient does not walk to the stretcher ever, they are assisted, or the were lifted onto it. Their reason that they give you is that, if the pt walked then medicare will not pay for the call. During my time there I was called into the office more than once and told to stop writting that the pt walked to the stretcher. I've never been big on lying, and I damn sure wasn't going to start on legal documents.

I wish I could get some of the people in my class to join, they would tell you exactly what I did. The teacher told us that, ran through the power points, and a few practicals, and that was about it.

The point of the story was that there were no set jobs for each person to be doing. There were 3 medics on the ambulance in the back. The guy was fairly big, and I believe it was a short transport, with that said, by no means am I making excuses for the crew.

It amazes me some of the things that get argued in the forums here. Is there nothing else to talk about other than who calls the apparatus by what name. And because one person calls it red instead of green does that make them any less a paramedic. If they call it a rescue should they be painted with the name "firemonkey". There sure is alot of name calling amongst the northern ems coummunity.

I recently took a phtls class as part of our paramedic curriculum. Before starting the class our teacher tells us "you have to take this class to pass paramedic, but alot of it is going to go against what we've been teaching you". He said it was do to phtls being a military based course. At the end of the 2 day class we were told to forget alot of what we learned, as in all the torniquet uses. Why is this class a part of civilian paramedic training if it contradicts what your paramedic course books teach?

I did forget about the airway, the crew had a king tube in place, which was pulled by the doctor. He intubated right afterwards.

What you said AK, about me not knowing other than what I see in my system is the exact reason I opened this question back up. And the second time around everyone has given great responses, on their feelings towards the matter. I appreciate everyone taking the time to go over this again. I have come to find that ems and fire combined is not a one size fits all, its somehing that has to be catered to each community. I have also come to find, if you want to fight fire you shouldn't go to a fly by night medic school just to get a raise, because you're probably not going to pay alot of attention and when the time comes when you're the only medic on scene, what are you going to fall back on. If you did'nt want it in the first place 9 times out of 10 these people are not going to keep up on the skills. Which puts lives at stake and drives patient care into the ground. Once again, thank you all for your honest opinions.

They tried that here in Jacksonville (Florida) but what it amounted to was the rescue's stopped calling ahead letting the er's know they were coming unless it was a code. There were alot of problems for sometime. Now that no hospital can divert anymore, things are running pretty smoothly.

For the most part the stats were run times and call volumes. It seems to me that you find alot happier people when you give people the option to go rescue or stay combat. Of course no one wants to be forced into something they didnt apply for, I fully understand that. If your going to have a dept that makes people go to rescue of course theres going to be complaints, and bad patient care. Which is ridiculous being no matter what truck you're on, you should be doing the best you can to help who ever is in need. Sometimes in the chat here I forget that once you start heading north the fire and rescue are separate, and I see all the people bad mouthing each other, i've just always had the belief that we work together, as a team we can accomplish anything that comes our way. I've never said anything bad about anyone in any aspect of the fire/rescue service, but not everyone feels the same as I do. So though this has been talked about before, I just wanted to put my view out there. Our rescue crews are happy doing what they do, because they have a choice, it"s just to bad everyone can't get on board with that and let people make their own decisions.

Ten o'clock in the morning in the ER, were doing clinicals. Call comes in over the radio, rescue is coming in with a cardiac arrest eta 2 mins. We start heading to the room to get everything ready, the rescue shows up and their coming towards the room bagging the pt and doing compressions. We get him over to the table where I continue compressions. At this point I watch as the biggest jumble of people unfolds in the room. Everyone is supposed to have a job to do, but at some point everyone except the paramedic students (us) forgot what they were supposed to be doing. The dr is calling out " who is getting the drugs ready" and you hear " I was but now im trying to get a iv established" No one is doing anything in any order, people are just jumping around the Dr is calling for meds and people are literally bumping into each other. When it was all said and done the Dr pronounced the pt. It just amazes me how a ER of trained nurses and a Dr could fall apart like that. Ive worked codes in 2 other hospitals in town during clinicals, and while on duty, and they all went perfect, or as perfect as you can go. Everyone had a job, and the Dr knew what was going on at all times. So where does the blame fall, on the Dr for not controlling the scene, the nurses and techs for not keeping to their jobs, or the hospital for not doing frequent training to prevent things like this from happening?

Here in Florida, the majority of our fire departments also have rescue ( ambulances). We also have several private ambulance companies through out the state, only a few of them actually do 911 calls, the rest cover the nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, and hospital discharges, and whatever else comes their way. Coming from a fire/rescue area it is all I have known for the most part, and I have never noticed any problems with our systems here. Ive researched alot of the states statistics and they are usually pretty good, along with that you never hear people complain about ems and fire being together. On the other hand I hear constant complaining from the majority of the northern ems personnel I talk to, whether it be people on vacation here or people on this site. So I pose the question of why is it such a problem, why do fire and ems not want to work together, for the most part in the northern states. Two things i've learned is as a team we can get alot further, and the only constant is change. So to those of you who work in the states where ems and fire are not combined, and you think they should stay that why, please explain why you feel that way.

Thats not just a nursing lesson, thats what we are taught in paramedic school, and in the hospitals where we do our clinicals.

Tunnel vision is something you are taught to get past while your in emt and/or paramedic school. Though every now and then your in a rescue/ambulance or on scene and you see someone who is stuck on one thing, as opposed to looking at the whole situation. A few weeks ago my partner did a swap shift with a guy from another station, this guy has been a paramedic for 6 years on private ambulances. We were sent to a patient presenting with altered mental status, we got him in the truck, I started getting him hooked up to the monitor while my partner checked his BGL. It came back at 52, his BP was 96/54. So the paramedic starts getting verything out of the IV tray to start a line, he automatically goes for the left ac, and misses. He procedes stick the guy in the same vein 4 more times, all the while i'm telling him, "you need to look somewhere else". The paramedic is sitting there sweating profusely going through needle after needle refusing to look anywhere else, and saying " we have to get a line" I tell him , i know but he needs to LOOK SOMEWHERE ELSE. At this point we are down to one 18 ga, a few 22's and a few 23 ga butterflies. The paramedic sits up after I tell him he's ran through everything, finally I yelled at him one more time, " we have one 18 ga and you have destroyed this guys arm" I had already checked his other arm, and there was just nothing to work with, I look at his neck, and there was a huge vein right in front of us. The paramedic put the 18 in and starting getting fluids in this guy, afterwards i jumped up front and we were off. If that wasn't tunnel vision with a bit of ignorance I dont know what is. Afterwards on the way back to the station I asked him, " why did you just keep stabbing him in the same spot" his reply " he needed a line, besides I got an EJ". Some people amaze me at the dream world they live in, not recognizing when they have screwed up, or not wanting to admit to it.

Here in Florida, the majority of our fire departments also have rescue ( ambulances). We also have several private ambulance companies through out the state, only a few of them actually do 911 calls, the rest cover the nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, and hospital discharges, and whatever else comes their way. Coming from a fire/rescue area it is all I have known for the most part, and I have never noticed any problems with our systems here. Ive researched alot of the states statistics and they are usually pretty good, along with that you never hear people complain about ems and fire being together. On the other hand I hear constant complaining from the majority of the northern ems personnel I talk to, whether it be people on vacation here or people on this site. So I pose the question of why is it such a problem, why do fire and ems not want to work together, for the most part in the northern states. Two things i've learned is as a team we can get alot further, and the only constant is change. So to those of you who work in the states where ems and fire are not combined, and you think they should stay that why, please explain why you feel that way.

First of all JP, I expected people to whine about who pays more taxes, thats standard. Second I have a job working in ems, the point I was making, is that housing tax reform is not a one size fits all, and is damn sure shouldnt be based on the the South Beach Miami residents housing tax. And as far as Spenac's comment, the rescues here dont take the hits, its the engine and ladder crews, and as much as I dont want to say it I have to, alls I hear, is complaining about fire and ems being combined from the people who dont live here in the south, well save it, we live here and this is how it is. You all live in the north or where ever. So its easy to complain about it.

Last year sometime around May, the state of Florida went on a total hiring freeze. Since then we have watched as our politicians have fought over a new home tax reform. The reform essentially is supposed to make everyones yearly taxes lower, but at the expense of cutting city budgets across the board. Starting with fire/ems and the police, but goes all the way down to areas like libraries and several others. This tax cut comes mostly from south Florida, where housing is a bit more expensive, i'm not talking about your $ 300,000 homes, im talking about your $ 1,500,000 homes. These people have complained and rallied about how they should not have to pay all these taxes, so now, we have a " one size fits all" tax reform that will be voted on Jan 29th. And though you me and our neighbors would instantly think, why are we laying off firefighters and police, and freezing their hiring when their already short handed? The answer is simple, these are the people where the likely hood of us coming to their homes is slim. These are the people who have plenty of insurance, who always go to their doctor, and for the most part take care of themselves. They have the new homes with the fire supression systems built in, to limit loss of life and property. Now i'm not saying they never have their problems, and they dont get sick, or their house dont burn, i'm saying the likely hood is alot less than others. So, looking at that, being they are not likely to need us, why should they care if our stations aren't staffed adequately, or if there are lafoff's looming ahead, simple, they dont. But the Gov that the fire,police and many others pushed so hard to get into office is on the same page as them. Through retirement some of our fire dept's have been slowly opening for new recruits, and the problem people are facing now is, though the dept's have been closed to hiring, the schools state wide have still been pumping students out left and right, so right now the market is flooded with firefighter/emt's and fire/medics. Theres nothing like paying roughly 13,000 in total school fee's to sit at home. Just another rant!