Twister_Ems

I work in a rural ems setting where our regular shift is 24 hours/48 a week. Some of my co-workers prefer to do 48hr shift but we are limited to that. Nothing over 48hrs at a time. Also we are very busy for a rural system. Its actually less common to NOT do a stand up 24. For that reason I elect not to do 48hr shifts. I feel its dangerous to do more then 24hrs when we are constantly doing standups. I do like our shifts tho. Full work week outta the way in 2 days. Have the rest of the week for school, study and play.

Thats another thing. Not bashing firefighters but you get too many people on scene its much more difficult to get things done. Now on mva's fire is a god send and are dispatched even before we are. And occasionally we will call them for lift assistance. But in the case of codes I dont want a bunch of firefighters fumbling around. I dunno bout other areas but here they get way too excited and start gettin in the way. Smoothest code Ive ever run was me and one other person in the back with a driver. One handled airway the other chest compressions. The one on airway would pause to push drugs, check rythems, get vitals ect and we would switch. It was so smooth it was almost scary.

The major problem I see with a fire based ems system is that you have personel doing somthing they dont really want to be doing. You have firefighters on the ambulance that would rather be on a truck and ems minded people stuck on the truck that would rather be on the ambulance. They are trying to intigrate the two here where Im at and to be quite honest I think its a money thing. Fire dept makes nothing and trys to work almost totaly off federal grants and ems makes a pretty decent ammount through patients insurance and a contract with the local hospital. If they did intigrate the money we use to keep ourselves paied well (as well as you can get in ems) and to keep our equipment updated and in running order would go to firetrucks and equipment that gets used on a rare occasion. Yeah this whole subject just kinda puts a burr under my saddle.