Hello from Germany!

[Bernhard]

Hello, my name is Bernhard and it's my first post in this forum.

I'm a german Rettungsassistent, working part time in our district wide EMS (covering roughly 120.000 inhabitants with 2 BLS & 4 ALS units plus an emergency physicians car, 12hr shifts, ~3-5 ALS calls per shift per unit). The location is near Munich in the southern german state of Bavaria.

With our local Red Cross branch I volunteer among other duties as a EMS first responder (ALS care but no transport, ~200 calls per year) and a medical MCI & disaster response squad (~2 calls per year).

Additionally I serve regularly as on-scene-commander for EMS (1 week on call duty every one or two months).

In the EMS field I'm now active for >25 years. For a living I'm a freelancing IT engineer.

Since I'm always interested in new views and knowledge exchange, I'm trying to learn from EMS around the world. So, I'm here, expecting an active and inspirating community @ emtcity and sincerely hope to be able to have some valuable input, too...

Regards,

Bernhard

PS: Rettungsassistent (Abbr. "RA") is the highest level of non-academic EMS care provider in Germany (next level would be emergency physician).

[tniuqs]

Guten Tag !

Welcome to EMT City ... from a Canadian "alter Mann".

We have many German tourists that visit in "summertime" everyone I have met are wunderbar and they do know good

Jump into the fray any time.

cheers

[DwayneEMTP]

Welcome brother...it's exciting to have you!

I only know one German..my dentist. I was scared shitless to go to her, being a child of the World War propaganda, (Germans are cold, and mechanical, unkind) but had no choice when my mother called her for me when I had a terrible toothache. She called my cell and said, "Are you on your way then?" I said, "Now??" She said, "Of course. Hurry now."

When I showed up the office was packed with people! A girl took me back to an office where they were taking a lady out of the chair that I later discovered was having her teeth cleaned. I protested that I was perfectly capable of waiting my turn, to which she said, "In Germany now one sits in pain while a healthy person gets care just because they came out of order..that is an American concept..."

I now really, really love my German dentist...

I look forward to your thoughts!

Dwayne

[Richard B the EMT]

Welcome Aboard!

You are at least the second German on the City, but as He hasn't posted in a long time, I don't know what happened. He was an instructor of EMS personnel, but I forget what city he lived in.

May I suggest not using any abbreviations, as not everything is universal? Some of us use abbreviations that mean something else to someone from a different county, parrish, state, provence, or as you will see here, country. Some will not make sense outside a particular service.

Sorry, just me venting on a pet peeve (14 pounds, with brown fir, LOL).

Again, WELCOME ABOARD!

[Bernhard]

Thank you all for the warm welcome!

It's really great to find an active forum with such a good professional level.

And thank you for your suggestions: I certainly will try to avoid acronyms, hoping the ones in my post above are usual ones. Several years ago I discussed a lot with colleagues from around the globe and especially from the U.S. so I may have developed some bad habits in misusing abbreviations.

And I'm glad that World War II is over since 1945. Crazy, what the word "German" is releasing still up to now. If you feel more comfortable, then for you I'm just a Bavarian (and yes, I know the real Oktoberfest from the visitor and from the medic side). Would be perfectly OK for me...

I already read some posts here about german and especially bavarian EMS in this forum and think they are pretty accurate and still true. But don't hesitate to ask if you want to know something about the way, we do things. I'm instructor for tactics in EMS and disaster situations including HAZMAT and therefore forced to know some legal glitches and the usual misunderstandings, that even my fellow colleagues may have.

Looking forward to a lot of interesting knowledge,

Bernhard

[NYCEMS9115]

Welcome to the City. There's a lot of knowledgeable people here. It's a good place to hear peer's opinions. There are differences in Practice. There's some controversy but it's a lot of fun...