Do you ever give patients "tough love"?

[Asysin2leads]

I guess, for me, yes and no. I try to limit my advice to pertinent medical information, give information or contact for social services, that type of thing.

While social service is part of EMS, its not what I'm trained for, I refer them to professionals, and in my experience, those who truly want help seek it on their own terms.

The only time I think I make a difference is when I give my "Do you know how stupid you are?" speech to the first time drunk young girl that we bring in. I think with a lot of them I hammer the point home.

[Poguemahone]

it all depends on my patent drunks yes i let them know not so much caus they will listen but becaus it make's me feel better kinda wrong kinda childish but drunks piss me off as much as those that abuse the systum

[firemedic05]

I recently had an instance where a Paramedic student basically I felt was flirting with a drunk patient. She told me that she used to be a bartender and she could handle herself. I told her from my experience that you have to maintain a professional distance because if you go to far it will backfire on you. She became defensive but I know that this is right.

[Dustdevil]

it all depends on my patent drunks yes i let them know not so much caus they will listen but becaus it make's me feel better kinda wrong kinda childish but drunks piss me off as much as those that abuse the systum

Plus 5 for honesty.

Minus 10 for spelling and punctuation. Come on, dude. You're embarrassing Canada.

[Scuba_Steve]

Man is born with a finite number of breaths in him for a lifetime. I try not to waste any of those breaths preaching to the deaf. Not only is it a waste of my precious breath, but it is counterproductive to society. I wholly encourage the defective amongst us to eliminate themselves from the gene pool. Why would I want to stop that?

At least here, on the Internet, I can school wankers and rookies without wasting any breaths.

That was priceless...........thanks for putting it so straight forward!!!!!!

[crazyemt5150]

Once in awhile i will pick up a bls overtime shift. Most of the time we do transfers from a hospital to a recovery clinic, and most of the times they are teens, and from life experiences i can't help talking to them and helping them out

[riskynremtp]

I've found that letting them hold a body bag while you're talking to them works pretty well.

[hammerpcp]

Hey I'm there for someone if they want my help. If not that is their choice. I'm not here to judge them...only help them find their way.

The rest, well that's up to them.

This just goes to show that a pretty one is not necessarily a dumb one. :wink:

Humans like to try to destroy themselves. I don't know why this is and I don't see any other animal doing it. Perhaps that is what separates 'man from the beasts'.

I find it a little ironic when the Paramedic sitting on his big fat fast food eating ass is criticizing the pt who smoked for twenty years and now has emphysema, or worse still is debating whether this pt deserves medical care because he “brought the illness on himself”. Or the weekend party animal who verbally degrades their alcoholic pt who has become a frequent flyer because of illness and lifestyle directly related to his/her addiction.

Some really smart guy said once that the first person to throw a rock should be the guy who is perfect...........or something like that.

[Michael]

Some really smart guy said once that the first person to throw a rock should be the guy who is perfect...........or something like that.

And a moment later he got beaned on the side of the head, whereupon he yelled out, Ma! I told you to stay away from my lectures!

[thbarnes]

they are well aware of that...I am however, straight with them

They may not be well aware of it right then, they might be feeling quite good actually (alcohol, pills, etc.) but they are going to be very well aware of the situation when they wake up in a noisy ER with a raging headache.

The only thing you can do is be honest.