jsadin

OMG, where to start? Higher education (all those "useless" classes) help to make you a more rounded person and force you to think outside your myopic little box. Everything you learn, every experience you have helps you to see the world a little differently. English, history, heck even calculus {shudder} are valuable and necessary. Do not simply dismiss higher education as just a "piece of paper".

Wow, where are the spelling/grammar police when you need them? It's not "payed", it's paid. The paid folks have more passion because they actually have a stake in doing the job well...it's their living!

This thread brings up an interesting discussion that I had in another forum and also with fellow EMS workers in my area: what kind of call volume should a paramedic see? Can the average medic be a "good" medic in a system that only has 120 calls per year total? I had posed the question because I've had more than one medic tell me no one should be a part-time medic because they wouldn't get the patient contact time needed to remain sharp. If that's the case, where does this leave rural America? Not all of us can be "fortunate" enough to live near medium to high volume systems.

CB, that's funny because my first EMS pants were Dockers. Yeah, I destroyed them pretty quick too. I can get over a year out of a pair of Elbeco's. I don't find the twill too hot in the summer, but it ain't 120F in Mass either.

My partner and I responded to a chimney fire one evening (we will stand by any fire call if we happen to be in town and available). When we arrived flames were visible about 2-3ft above the top of the chimney. Two extinguishers up the cleanout and we had the fire out before the FD showed up. Yay us.

re: Doug Damn, I gotta go west!

Pepper - The Butthole Surfers

Ummm...if we become more educated then maybe our protocols will change to guidelines. I know in some systems this is already the case (although not in The Peoples Republic of Massachusetts).

Sweet mother of mercy. I wonder how many of the ones that lived will have life altering injuries?

Excellent posts Dwayne. The silence is deafening....

Just visited the CAAHEP website and there are ZERO accredited paramedic programs in Massachusetts. Wow. At least in NV you've got the College of Southern Nevada. That's the only one tho'.

Oh, that old chestnut. :roll: FYI, I have no problem working with fire. I have a problem with fire forcing EMS on their dept members and producing sub-par providers who view working on the ambulance as a necessary evil.

OMG, I'm sitting in my office in the cellar laughing like an idiot! That was great....(I've been married for 19yrs).

http://www.amtrauma.org/news/news_detail_597.html A level I facility is a regional academic trauma center and must meet much stricter criteria than a level II center. These requirements include a general surgery residency program, research in trauma, a cardiac surgery program and microvascular and replantation surgery. For 24 hours a day, the center must have a dedicated operating room, surgical personnel and a surgical intensive care unit (ICU) physician. The designation also requires a surgically directed and staffed ICU service, in-house computed tomography scan technician, magnetic resonance imaging, acute hemodialysis, a minimum annual volume of patients and extramural trauma educational activities.

I started out in fire-based EMS and I am still a member of my local fire dept (running on the ambulance only). I love the fire fighter guys/gals on the dept and they are some of the most genuine people I know. That being said, out of the 20 or so that attend the refreshers each year, about 4-5 actually run any ambulance calls.....ever. Most of them have absolutely no desire to do EMS work and they hang onto their EMT simply because its a requirement of their employment. Many of them will tell you straight up that they will not work on the ambulance, even just to drive. If my small dept has this type of attitude prevailing, what do you think larger depts have to deal with? Do you really want a fire medic who is just biding his time until he can drop him medic treating your loved one? Do you think they're going the extra mile and learning anything beyond the bare minimum? In regards to needing mucho fire equipment; if you're in an area that has frequent, large brush fires, I can see having a good amount of personnel and equipment. Up here in Massachusetts, that is not the case. I can listen to my scanner for weeks on end and never hear a piece of fire apparatus role to anything. And then if they do role, it's usually a box alarm set off by someone burning dinner in the elderly community.

Why not just roll another ambulance? At least then you KNOW you have medics that probably want to be medics. As has been discussed in here ad nauseum, most fire fighters want to fight fires, not run ambulance calls. This is reflected in some departments policies that allow a fire fighter to drop their medic after a few years and spend the rest of their career on a fire truck. I have friends that are fire medics and they are very dedicated, educated people, so I understand they are out there. I also know that the top medic services around here are NOT fire based.

I understand that can happen, but do you agree that it's FUBAR if it does? One ALS ambulance would save time, money and personnel. Rolling a diesel guzzling engine on an ambulance call is wasteful beyond all reason.

Are you sh*tting me? Why the f*** would fire have more advanced equipment than the ambulance for handling an anaphylactic reaction??

I guarantee you they were running that fast because they were trying to beat each other to the scene (whomever gets there first cosistently can claim better response times). Sending a non-transport piece of fire apparatus to a medical call is wasteful and dangerous.

I worked for them for about three years. Yeah, there were some good folks, but a lot of bottom feeders too.

That's not an easy question to answer. Every patient is going to be different and require different levels of response. A rapidly deteriorating patient is going to get a more aggressive effort than a one that is holding their own. Aggressive treatment can bite you in the arse if it's done without compelling reason.

Just got the bill for my daughter's first year of college: $36,000. Ouch. I'll take a medic program bill any day...

I'm still chuckling at how he was shot "center mast". Right in the shock trousers, eh?

If you had said some people, I'd agree. I would not agree with many.

Thanks for the info 'zilla. Sad to see him gone.