Trauma Docs with lights and sirens?? What do you think?

[buckeyedoc]

I am totally against trauma surgeons having L&S on their vehicles. I work in a level II trauma center and have the surgeons on call. All of them live within 20 minutes of the hospital. The squads in our area are pretty good about calling a trauma alert. If a trauma happens to just show up on our doorstep (and it does happen), then the ER docs are good enough to stabilize the patient until the surgeon arrives. On a lighter note, we had a trauma surgeon who bragged about how much his suits and shoes cost (more in a joking manner). Well, we had a GSW that required a chest tube. Just so happened that Dr. K (that's what I'll call him) was in the ER dropping something off. Well, you guessed it, blood all over his $1500 Italian suit's pants and $300 leather shoes. Dr. K is a real good guy and really doesn't have the god complex (as hard as it is to believe).

"Dr. C" drives a 2006 Lexus SC. I would love to see what he would do with lights and sirens. That son-of-a-gun would light up like a Christmas tree.

[AnthonyM83]

I think it depends on a lot of stuff that we don't have specific information on here.

What's the average regular response time versus L/S response FOR THAT AREA?

Around here, you could save a WHOLE lot more than 43 seconds by using L/S during rush hour.

It's also depend on the specific policy on which traffic regulations can be broken when going L/S.

What's the crash rate for physician POV L/S responses versus other EMS POV L/S responses.

Overall, it seems like a potential logical life-saving policy to me, though.

[bandaidpatrol]

My hearse had an under-the-hood siren... Seems perfectly morbid that I can have one, but a physcian cannot...

[BillEMTP]

Why add to the excuses for some of these people to drive fast? We have all seen the BMW's, Mercedes, Lexus, and other various and assorted luxury cars driving like the law doesn't apply to them. Give some of those egomaniacs lights and warning equipment is just a lawsuit waiting to happen. First time one of them blows an intersection at 105 and hits another car, the odorish emission is going to confront the oscilating dvice...............Add a alcohol level of .9...................So much for that idea.

[Bloodtub]

Here in the UK we have an Emergency Doctors Service called BASICS.

the scheme was set up by General Practitioners & Hospital Truma Doctors

to attened serious road traffic accidents and incidents like the recent London

bombings.

There are schemes who are based around the UK and are only called out by

the Ambulance service, Medical Doctors are allowed to have a GREEN LIGHT

on there vehicle and if there BASICS also siren/two tones etc and in some cases

also Blue lights (The HEMS team in London use them)

www.basics.org.uk

[Dustdevil]

Seems a little silly for anybody to argue that volunteer fire wankers can run hot, but an emergency surgeon cannot. Reminds me of the 120 hour basics arguing how 40 hour first responders aren't trained well enough. Territorial more than logical.

The only logical argument to be made here is that nobody should be running around with lights & sirens on their POV. And if you don't make that argument, then you look silly picking and choosing.

[Ridryder 911]

I agree... no P.O.V should be running "hot".. look at the MVC involving EMS units and LEO units that are even marked. Why increase the number & then what have we saved ?

R/R 911

[Beagle189]

I have a question on the data from the "Only 43 seconds difference" w/ lights and sirens. A few years ago when my service went to the NAEMD dispatch cards/system and we began running some emergencies No Lights & Siren we did a study( Not really scientifically supervised). We found that inside our largest city (pop. @ 70,000, increasing during working hours to approx. 100,000) that L/S response got us there 2.2 minutes faster. Granted there were times when it was close to the 43 seconds i.e. "Rush Hours", but during "Waking hours of 0700 to 2100 was the major time difference. In the rural areas there was no difference in the times.

I would like to know the population(s) of those areas and the time of day in the studies.

I have seen these numbers for 20 years but never read a study on it.

[n5iln]

Seems a little silly for anybody to argue that volunteer fire wankers can run hot, but an emergency surgeon cannot. Reminds me of the 120 hour basics arguing how 40 hour first responders aren't trained well enough. Territorial more than logical.

Vollies can't run "hot" in my area unless they're in an authorized emergency vehicle. For their POVs, they get courtesy lights only, which entitles them to...wait for it...absolutely nothing. 'Nuff said on that, for now anyway.

Back to the question at hand...if an EMS system somewhere wants to put a physician in a fly car or something, so be it, and I have absolutely no problem with that. But do it the same way they set up regular crew rotations: provide EVO training, get the doc qualified, write a rotation schedule that works for all the docs that want to run in the field, and so forth. But don't say "sure, doc, just put a red light and a siren in your own car." It's a liability nightmare waiting to happen.

Just my two cents' worth...save up the change for a root beer or something...

[AnthonyM83]

Why add to the excuses for some of these people to drive fast? We have all seen the BMW's, Mercedes, Lexus, and other various and assorted luxury cars driving like the law doesn't apply to them. Give some of those egomaniacs lights and warning equipment is just a lawsuit waiting to happen. First time one of them blows an intersection at 105 and hits another car, the odorish emission is going to confront the oscilating dvice...............Add a alcohol level of .9...................So much for that idea.

You're making an assumption here. Yeah, a doc could certainly take things a little far getting to the hospital with L/S especially at first, but what percentage of them? Is it more or less than other EMS personnel? What's their accident rate?

I backup what Dustdevil said.