Refusing To Assist With CPR Because of No Gloves?

[Just Plain Ruff]

I am all for being a team player, but it is not my responsibility to run codes for an ER. All hospitals should have a "code team" that responds 24/7. I am guessing you gave them a radio or phone report that you were transporting a "code", so if the ER was not ready for your patient that is their problem. If I was the ER manager I would be quite upset if someone was recruiting people from the lobby to give patient care.

unless of course you work in that ER and are hospital based but I'm not sure that that applies to the OP.

But seriously, the hospital should have had enough help but I know that I have worked in areas where the hospitals have a nurse and a doctor on duty and if they are lucky they have a nursing supervisor. I worked in a county service where we would be routinely called to the ER to help out. We basically ran the codes because the nurse and doctor didn't expect these types of patients and when they got them they sort of froze so we'd get calls on the phone from the hospital (it's a psych hospital with a Emergency room - think urgent care) to come over and "give em a hand".

i cannot count the number of codes that I got called on over there.

[HERBIE1]

Off duty or on duty- doesn't make a damn bit of difference to me. This guy was an a'hole. Period.

In an ER, there are boxes of gloves of every size. No excuses.

Unless the patient was covered in blood, or had a gaping chest wound, II see no reason why you can't do simple compressions- the risk of being exposed to anything is essentially nil.

Then again, when I started in the business it was a badge of honor to be covered up to your elbows in blood. Yeah, unthinkable now, but we didn't know better. Guess what? Never caught anything from a patient either.

This lazy provider would hate to have me as a partner- he would be in for a very long day.

[DwayneEMTP]

Yeah, I'm going to take a different tack....an arrest in an ER, and you need more than two people for compression? And (what sounds like) a basic recruiting folks because he's unable to continue compression due to exhaustion? For a patient with an initial rhythm of asystole?

This entire code sounds like a cluster fuck. I'm thinking that if this was perhaps a competent medic that 'gloves' was maybe easier than saying..."I want no part of that mess...." But, then again, unless he's banging one of the nurses, or ill, I don't know what he was doing at the ER while off duty.

Just a thought...

Dwayne

[Dustdevil]

Pretty common for n00bs to give out during CPR. The adrenaline rush wears off, and you crash hard. With experience, you learn not to care, and can do it hours non-stop.

[BushyFromOz]

Yeah, I'm going to take a different tack....an arrest in an ER, and you need more than two people for compression? And (what sounds like) a basic recruiting folks because he's unable to continue compression due to exhaustion? For a patient with an initial rhythm of asystole?

Dwayne

Im more inclined to go with the "compressions are beneath me" line. If he was truly not able to assist because he's off duty, he shouldn't have gone into the room. Perhaps he felt that he was heading in there to do some sexy medicine rather than breaking ribs.

Whatever the reason he went in there the no gloves thing is just a cop out

[Vorenus]

Not exactly good style to not helping you if specifically asked, but more or less OK since he was 1. off-duty and 2. not really needed, numerically. There obviously were enough on-duty folks there (you won't tell me that a bunch of emergency room staff, two medics and two first responders aren't enough for a code in a trauma room environment?).

Yep, I`m with Bernhard on that one. There obviously were enough folks there to work that code.

Do you often continue to work your codes in the ER - they should be enough to deal with that on their own.

I once reanimated at the ICU of a smaller rural hospital. We were approximately 2-3 nurses, one physician and my partner and I. They could have dealt with it on their own, but since we would have transported him anyway to the next stroke center if we would have acchieved ROSC and it would have been shown for him to have a neurological incident (which seemed likely), we stayed and helped them out a bit.

[uglyEMT]

OK here goes..... personal opinion the medic was a dick. No gloves? In a trauma room? Come on even a civilian could come up with a better excuse. And it is just that an excuse.

Off duty? Another excuse. Would you, as a medical professional, not do CPR at a resturant, ball game, shopping mall because you were off duty?

Helping out in the ER, yea it sucks, but as a trained medical technician you are qualified. I have assisted in Level 1 Trauma Centers when asked. Sometimes even they get overwhelemed. On duty or Off if your in a uniform and asked you should assist. Sorry that doing compressions isn't heroic enough or sexy enough or challenging enough for your paramagic skills.

Would I report him/her? No, unfortunatly he/she didn't do anything wrong.

Sorry if I am coming off as a dick myself, call it early AM, lack of sleep, being under the weather, whatever but after reading the OP I got pissed to hear yet again one of our own doesn't live up to their responsabilities.

[Vorenus]

Off duty? Another excuse. Would you, as a medical professional, not do CPR at a resturant, ball game, shopping mall because you were off duty?

Yeah, that`s a totally different situation.

Don`t get me wrong, I don`t think the response of that provider was very collegially either, and would I have been asked, I would have done it. But I would as well have thought (and that`s the whole point of that argument) - couldn`t they have done it alone? From what engine told, I figure there were at least (!) six people in that room, all on duty.

That`s totally different from being the only provider in a restaurant and acting as first responder to an arrest.

Just wanted to point that out - again, I`m not saying the medics reaction was nice, but he wasn`t wrong.

Edited July 27, 2011 by Vorenus

[uglyEMT]

I get you Vorenus maybe my example was poor, my meds have my brain foggy lately.

Still though even in an ED setting having more hands to do CPR always helps. As engine stated she was exausted thus wouldn't provide good proper compressions thus the need to have someone else jump in. Again I am not saying the medic was wrong just that the excuse was just that an excuse.

[NYCEMS9115]

Didn't the ER have staff who could takeover compressor roles? Bystanders were needed?