Redcell19512

We use EMSTAT, I highly recommend it. ( http://www.med-media.com/ems/emstat.shtml ) A friend uses EmsCharts ( www.emscharts.com ) when he does the flight medic thing. He loves it, literally I'm afraid. The whole thing is internet based, no software to install, can write your chart from anywhere, etc etc. Stay away from a product called Amazon. I think they changed the name to Suitesoft. The company started out doing billing software and expanded into the electronic PCR business. We use their billing software and liked it so we tried the PCR software. It was a very expensive nightmare. Not user friendly. The program didn't flow well at all. Despite hours of one on one training our employee's, and trainers, just didn't get it. The software wasn't compatible with "Terminal Server" (computer geek stuff that I dont understand) even though they told us it would be. Customer service was non existent.

When I was 19 I faced this same decision. I'd been running as a volly with Advanced First Aid for two years in high school. I took my EMT and 3 months later applied for, and got, a job on a BLS rig in Chester County, PA. I went from running 200 calls a year at my volly squad to running around 150 calls a month at my job. I was exposed to hospital based ALS (a medic and a nurse). I started doing inter-facility transports from the local hospital to one of the many Philadelphia hospitals. When I did I always read through every page of the patient's chart. When I didn't know something I took notes and asked one of the hospital folks about that particular subject. A year later I went to medic school and graduated #1 in my class (not a huge accomplishment considering the curriculum and the caliber of the other students..but please, I have so little, let me cling to this one thing...oh, sorry bout that) My point is that if you want to get ahead you need to put yourself in uncomfortable positions sometimes and you need to work hard. I say you have only one option...go for it.

I'm sure the stigma of saying "I got beat up by a woman" might be an issue but I think some others come into play. One does not need to be beaten to a pulp to be the victim of domestic violence. Example: A couple is involved in a heated verbal arguement. The woman throws the TV remote at the man hitting his face and breaking his glasses. He has a small cut on his nose as a result. I'd hardly call that being beaten up by a woman but I would call that domestic violence. So why wouldn't a man report it? I imagine a fair number of men assume that in cases of domestic violence the police side with the woman and despite being the only person with physical injury perhaps some men feel they will be arrested even though they did nothing wrong. Now that fear may be irrational but it still may be present. I constantly hear divorced men complain about how the legal system shafted them in custody and child support cases because "the judges always side with the women". Well, if that's true then I must be a woman cause I've been to court 3 times in 3 years over child custody and support and the judge has sided with me each and every time. Another issue may be a man's tendency to let things slide and not dwell on them. "Yeah she hit me with the remote. I called her a #%^$ and left....and I didn't bother coming home that night either." And that's it, end of story. The man brushes it off and gets on with life remembering that he had worse injuries on the playground in grade school. Right way to look at it? No, probably not. But I bet it happens. On the lighter side: I personally have never been the victim of, or aggressor in, a case of domestic violence. I did hit a woman years ago when I was in karate class and she in turn mopped the floor with my face. But that wasn't violence. That was foreplay.

Auto accident. 70 ish year old lady lost control of her car on a wet road and drove up a pretty steep hill covered with grass and ankle to knee high vegitation, some small tree stumps as well (remember that, it'll be important later). So her car is 3/4 of the way up this hill. She's standing outside her car. My partner and I walk up to her and discover she's not hurt. We got her registration and insurance papers out of the car for her and we all started to walk down the hill. I say: Be careful maam, the ground is pretty slippery. At this point I'm already sliding down the hill on my back heading towards the street as cars are coming round the sharp corner. Luckily I got my arm caught up on one of the tree stumps and stopped myself before I got to the street. The little old lady walks down with my partner and offers to help me up.

Had a guy in his early 20s. Injected "3 bags" of heroine tonight. His friends found him unresponsive and started ventilations and chest compression and called 911. The bls unit arrived first and found the guy breathing about 6 times a minute but not very much effort. Anyway, I gave him two 0.5 mg doses of IV narcan and things got all better. He reported no history of health problems, he takes no medications. His blood sugar was 375 mg/dl. Is this guy an undiagnosed diabetic or could the hyperglycemia be a result of his near death experience tonight? I asked the ER nurse and she said she didn't know (her shift was over in 20 minutes).

The local hospital/trauma center is doing a series of public health lectures. They're teaming up a paramedic and a physician to discuss the prehospital/in-hospital care of Strokes, MI's, and Trauma. I got "nominated" to represent our service on the paramedic end (I only play a doctor on TV). I don't normally do public speaking engagements. It's not for lack of talent, I just don't want to end up being one of those guys that gets called to open new shopping malls and movie theaters. I had my share of ribbon cuttings in the ealry 90's. Nuff is 'nuff. My service also has a full time Public Relations Officer. He's constantly in the schools doing seat belt awareness in driver's ed classes. He's all over the place all year long. I'm sure he'll have something planned for EMS week, I just don't know what.

"The lawsuit contends the posting led TV reporters to her door, prompted neighborhood reconnaissance and may have impeded the police investigation" If that statement is true then he must have posted details that ID'd the victim. Not cool. Really not enough in the article for me to come up with an opinion on whether or not he should have lost his job.

People who are normal at work are freaking nuts on services like MySpace. A bunch of co-workers set up accounts so I did as well. Next thing I knew two of our female volunteers were posting suggestive comments on my page. My wife saw their comments and flipped. I was like, eh, it's no big deal, they're teenagers and they're goofing around...it's nothing. Then I thought, wait a minute! How would my boss view this? I'm a supervisor and they are two teenage girls who I sometimes oversee at work. I deleted the account that day. Oh and I when I set up the account, I didn't put my real name anywhere on the page. Unfortunatley, when people that know you post on your page they often forget not to use your real name.

If you know about his eating and sleeping habits is it fair to say that you have a friendly rapport with him. Why not just ask him what's up? Do it in private, casually. Dont speak for everyone, just speak for you. If this guy's stressed out the last thing he needs to hear is "everyone has noticed that youre losing your marbles". Don't push too hard. If he wants to talk he will. He if doesn't respond, drop it. IF he really wants to talk he'll come back to you later.

Don't allow yourself to fall into the mindset that you are a victim as the result of your profession. Time and time again I've heard providers complain about the drunk that punched them or spit on them. I've heard the excuse, well he didn't know what he was doing cause he was drunk. Sorry, no excuse. A drunk spit in my face several years ago. He got 3 to 23 months in jail for his trouble followed by 2 years of probation. In court it was clear he had no memory of me or what he did. Didn't matter to the DA, didn't matter to the judge. Pscyh patient's may be a different story. However not all psych pt's are created equal. This patient that assaulted you, were they psychotic? Were they so mentally ill that they really were not responsible for their actions? If the answer is yes then I tend to agree with Basic, why waste the time. But if we're talking about a guy that just felt down in the dumps and threatened suicide but was otherwise mentally clear....well, that might be a different story. If you really want to know if you have a case perhaps you could call the District Attorney's office and run the scenario by them. Police officer's aren't lawyers and shouldn't be relied upon to dispense legal advice (I have several friends that are cops, they all agree on this point).

When I was 16 I had enoscopy done on my colon and at a later date my stomach. When they did my colon I got a hep trap. But for the stomach the GI doc injected the "sleepy medicine" directly into the vein. This was 18 years ago mind you. Today I would assume nobody has a procedure done under sedation without an IV site of some type. My partner and I happened to be at the ER when one of those drive up and drop off heroine ODs came in. I watched a nurse main line narcan. Besides those two incidents I've not seen it done anywhere else.

We bought one last year. The ER where we take 80% of our patient's has two of them so the results are well recieved when we bring pt's in with SPCO readings. The cost was steep so we only bought one which we run on the supervisor's ALS response vehicle. Hence, we don't have a lot of experience with it. On a side note, once we bought the RAD57 we found out from our medical director that in PA, technically finger probe measurement of SPCO is outside of our scope of practice. That's according to the State Medical Director (no I can't remember his name). The state is supposedly visiting the issue which is a good thing when you consider they have the RAD57 on the approved item list for EMSOF funding :roll: I've personally used it twice. Once on a change in mental status call where a kerosene space heater was in use. Second time was one of those 2 am CO detector activations. Family of 5. I was able to check all 5 patient's with the RAD 57, all were below 3%. Fire dept got zero ppm readings throughout the house. Seemed to set the parents minds at ease that I had a machine that could tell them everything was "ok". Down side is of course training. We didn't have any.

First call as an EMT was a lower leg fracture on a soccer player. I did such a great job that the crowd gave me a standing ovation as I took the player off the field. My first call as a medic was a mentally challanged group home resident who stuffed an entire peanutbutter sandwhich in his mouth and choked to death. Try intubating when all the landmarks are smeared with bread and peanutbutter. P.S. somebody else got the tube.

My company's website has fire and accident scene photographs that were taken by our personnel, usually one of the supervisors. They follow two rules. 1. Pics are not taken until all the victims have been transported off the scene 2. License plates and addresses are protected/edited out of the picture. Still, I find the practice to be unacceptable. I remember looking at pics from a fatal accident and thinking, gee, if the victim's friends or family came across our website (let's say they want our address so they can send us a thank you card for trying to help) and saw these pics, what would they think? My company is not the exception here. A lot of agencies have "scene" pictures on their websites. I just don't get it. Pictures you take while you are on duty shouldn't have been taken in the first place and certainly should not appear on your own website. If you get caught you should be disciplined. Fired? Maybe that's a bit harsh, unless you've already been a naughty employee in the past.

Today I'm working with an EMT who reads and writes on about a 4th grade level. It doesn't end there. He has a limited ability to communicate verbally on a coherent level with patient's and other medical providers. On the surface he almost seems to be mildly retarded (I'm not being mean...I'm stating a fact). When we're on a serious call he has that deer in the headlight look on his face. When we're on a minor medical emergency, he just looks like he's along for the ride. Most of the time he doesn't have a clear understanding of what's going on with the patient. How did a person like this get hired as a part time EMT? Well, started out here as a volunteer 15 years ago. Somehow he managed to pass the 120 hour EMT course and passed the recert tests every three years. He's a nice guy so when the company went paid he was given a job. Cause, you know, it wouldn't be fair not to include him and he IS an EMT. Under PA's current recert policy all he has to do is obtain 24 hours of con-ed every three years and his certification will be renewed....forever and ever. So yes. I am in favor of a 2 year minimum degree to work on an ambulance.

Well, I scored an 18 but as it turns out I'm not being honest with myself: I now realize that it's ok to need help. :x :? :shock: :wink: oh, wait, I'm all better.

I hear this from paramedics all the time and it disturbs me. Just because you are trained to intubate does not mean you will have a 100% success rate. There will be patient's that you simply will not be able to intubate. Hence the use of back up devices.

I worked with an EMT who served jail time for a DUI accident that resulted in property damage and personal injury. He was not only an alcoholic but a drug abuser as well. His DUI turned his life around and 10 years after the fact he was clean and sober. He became an EMT and was hired full time. He was very open and honest about his past and I believe that is why he was considered for the job. Your friend should find out if the conviction is still on his criminal record. He also needs to check is driver's license record. I got a speeding ticket when I was 17 and that didn't go away when I turned 18. He may not have a criminal record but he may still have a DUI on his driving record. He's been out of trouble for 3 years. That's a good start but I have a feeling he'll look a lot better to an employer in a few more trouble free years. The worst thing he could do is lie on an application and get caught. A criminal conviction means you made a mistake. Lying about it makes you a liar.

Are they drunk or retarded? Perhaps both.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO_D0zXRimU

So if I get my buddy Armondo drunk and he beats the hell out of your supervisor, he won't press charges? :?

20 something male, drunk, domestic with his girlfriend. He was handcuffed and face down on the floor when we arrived, bleeding a little from his lip. We strapped him into the collapsable litter face up like good little medics and he landed a large wad of bloody spit on the side of my face, behind my glasses and in my eye. Also got some on the cop's shirt (the cop is also an EMT by the way). He threatened me multiple times on the way to the hospital stating was going to hunt me down and kill me. Oddly enough I live 5 blocks from this dirtbag and he is the reason I finally got my concealed carry permit. Sure, he's half my size but I'm sure he has access to knives and baseball bats. Charges filed, two counts of assault for the spit. He plead guilty and was sentenced to a 3 to 23 months in county jail followed by 2 years of probation.

Got the LED conversion for the Mini Maglite (AA) I keep in my survival kit. It's great for up close work like reading a map or checking out a patient or car in the dark. A few of the other guys use them as their primary lights and they tell me the batteries last for a very long time with regular use. They're bright up close but you won't get a good beam say 20 feet away. Surefire makes some really cool LEDs that are uber powerful....and uber expensive (we're talking over $100, maybe over $200, lol) I use the Surefire G2 Nitrolon. It's not an LED but it's small and super powerful. Cost me $37. A box of 10 Surefire 123A lithium batteries ($20) lasted one year. And I use the light all the time, on duty and off. Oh and the batteries have a 10 year shelf life for all you zombie invasion planners.

Isn't it more like 12? I thought is was 4 years pre med, 4 years med, then 3 or 4 years as a resident in your specialty.

I kick myself every day for not getting a nursing degree. I'd still be working as a paramedic but with the nursing degree I'd have something that I don't have now....options. If I ever grow weary of 12 hour swingshifts or suffer a shoulder, back, or knee injury from which I can't fully recover what can I do with a paramedic cert other than work on an ambulance? Sure there are medics working in some ERs but those jobs are few. I guess I could work in a lab drawing blood all day. Maybe make $10/hr taking temperatures and blood pressures in a doctors office as a medical assistant. I actually enjoyed college. I don't drink and hate the party scene, I actually enjoy reading and leargning. I don't think I'd want to go to school as long as needed to be a physician. Nurse practitioner or PA, sure, I'd do that.