dougd

Firedoc - Your boy is ok? I hope so. I remember totaling my Dad's '92 Bonneville on x-mas eve in 1992 in a snowstorm while he was out of town. I, like your son, was so afraid he would be mad at me. Luckily my sister and I were ok. Police Sgt: So this is your Dad's car. Me: Yes, Sgt. Police Sgt: And you are supposed to pick him up from the airport in two days? Me: Yes, sir. Police Sgt: Well, son, normally we write a failure to control ticket for something like this, but I'd say you have enough problem on your hand. Merry Christmas, get it out of here. Of course, his only concern was that everyone was ok. The car, it could be fixed. When you're 16 you don't realize that.

Not sure how much is rumor mill at this point, but based on one of the comments made in the Red Wings / Blackhawks game this weekend by a commentator - there MAY have been a defib either on site or with the responding ambulance crew that had a bad battery. That said, this is total speculation that I'm attributing to a color commentator from Fox Sports Detroit from Saturday night - so this could be totally by wrong.

I'm also surprised this just hit the media. The EMS Officer for a local FD who did my CPR refresher used Stayin' Alive as an example of something to keep in your head for doing compressions. I can honestly stay the lesson sticks with you - much as that song stays stuck in your head. :-)

Well, even as a basic, I can tell you that I have no clue if they are stable or not based on one set of vitals. They might be "normal" compared to most of the population - but those might be abnormal for the patient. Bottom line - I've never called in a report where I said a patient's vitals were "stable" or "normal." The best I can do is provide some trending over the brief period of time I am in contact with the patient. I might indicate there was been no change - or I might indicate there has been a change - e.g. BP dropping. I'd like to think that is of more use to the receiving hospital than my opinion of if that is stable for the patient. Maybe I'm wrong - if so I'm sure all of you will be more than happy to point out the flaw in my logic. :-)

I was out at a bar last night during the game with my girlfriend to celebrate a birthday for one of her friends. I noticed right away that I was the only person in the place rooting for Penn State. Yes, I'm in the middle of Ohio State country and I grew up listening to OSU football on the radio with my grandpa on Saturday afternoons. I love Ohio State football. That said - even if OSU won, there is no way they're going to the national championship after the USC loss, especially when you consider the way they've choked the past couple of trips. So who has the best chance of representing the big ten in the national championship? Penn State. Also, JoePA deserved this. One of the only reasons he came back last year was that large class of seniors who were supposed to dominate (and did not). What better way for him to go out on top than this year? It's the best chance he's had in a while and I hope he pulls it off and then has the common sense to retire. So yes, I cheered on Penn State and I hope they continue to have success throughout the rest of the season. Apparently, I have sympathy for that "old man" as he was described. :-)

All went well, I left the hospital Friday afternoon and spent the weekend at my parent's house since my mom was nice enough to play Taxi for me Friday. Saturday was a little rough, I woke up feeling like someone had punched me in the gut all night long. Other than that, I'm feeling pretty good, but I won't be lifting any patients for the next 4-6 weeks.

Surgery tomorrow morning at 07:15. Apparently I get to wake up early so they can knock me back out.

I'm not a paramedic, but I can't help but comment on some of this from a manager's point of view - granted, the phone company isn't EMS, but basic management and training concepts still apply. I'm sorry, but that's just crap. Unprofessional crap. At the very least do they have required dress standards for new employees (e.g. wear navy pants with a white polo shirt)? How about just a tank top and some ripped up jeans tomorrow? Is that the professional image they're striving for? Why can't they provide you an ID to hang on the shirt? Something, ANYTHING, to identify you as an employee of the company. I can't get in to the building where I work during the day, nor out of the hallway in to my office without my ID card - and we're not doing anything as important as dealing with human life. Same thing with my job at the ambulance company - I can't get inside the building without my photo ID which also unlocks the door. Do hospitals actually let you just walk in at night without any ID? Sounds like I could have a field day social engineering my way around down there. Again, crap. Big time, red-flag, screaming "WE SUCK" crap. A supervisor's job is to give you the tools you need to be successful. Unfortunately, you have a shift stupidvisor instead. Similar to the customs agent who seems to take a certain degree of pleasure out of harassing the stuffing out of someone who misunderstands one of their directions - if you take people with minimum education and no spine and put them in a position of limited authority, they'll go out of their way to get over on the few people new enough to let them get away with it so they can feed the need of their otherwise fragile and bruised ego. Time for them to suck it up and admit that the cost of a couple of bound printouts is a cost of doing business. If your boss can't provide you a written copy of the medical protocols, how exactly do they expect you to treat patients? How can they demonstrate what standard they are holding you to? I have to wonder how the doctor who is signing off on those protocols feels about that. As for writing the PCR's. I can understand your FTO reviewing your run report. What I don't understand is the idea of making you write it on a separate sheet of paper, reviewing it, then giving you permission to write out the PCR. That's Mickey Mouse bullshit and you know it. A better solution would be for the FTO to do the first few PCRs and have you review them and ask questions you might have. Then, you write one and he reads it, challenging you if he has questions, and offering some suggestions or coaching on what you could do differently. You can always amend it, and if it really is that horrible, you can write a new one. That's the constructive way to do it and you'd probably both learn something out of the process. It's certainly useless for him to scratch out your entire narrative and then put in one bullshit line and basically say, "That's all we need, silly yankee girl." Frankly, at that point you tell your FTO to go f*uck himself and if that is a problem, you find a new employer. These people either do NOT want you to succeed or have no idea how to help you succeed.

Likewise, next time you're in Cleveland, beer and wings on me.

Seriously, WTF? You know, part of me would love to actually hear her attempt to rationalize her decision - just out of curiosity in how a deranged mind functions. The other, more hammurabic part of me would like to see someone chop off her foot and feed it to her dogs. She needs to be terminated and prosecuted. Period.

I don't know, but I see this exact same situation all. the. time. I always assumed a SNF or an ECF would be able to get some basic lab results back or get a FM consult in the morning. (I mean, my FM doctor can get lab reports back in 24 hours.) The other one I see all the time is where Facility X gets tired of dealing with Patient Y because he's a pain / moaner / angry / whatever... so they claim altered mental status and want you to ship them off to an ED for a couple of hours of peace and quiet. There's a fine use of Medicaid dollars. :roll:

I always end up at the top of the stair chair, but I find it easier that way. Beats the heck out of usually needing to slouch some for the first couple of steps, or an inadvertant foot to the groin. Back to the OP: Congrats Wendy!!!

Richard, I'm still confused by one point here. The MTA is allowed to charge the city for vehicles going over their bridges and tunnels - even if they're running hot? (Your original post makes it sound as if responding units get charged by the EZ-Pass system.) Do they charge NYC when those units respond to an MVA on the bridge? Amusing, although I do recall some tool booth collectors for the Ohio Turnpike Commission trying to charge a hazmat team and an emergency management director maximum tolls for their trucks because one of them had no ticket, and the other was attempt to exit at the same toll both they had entered at. Both units had responded to a tanker spill on the turnpike. After much arguing and a couple of rounds of phone calls, the issue was resolved. Important lesson: Always get a toll ticket and have it signed by a state trooper when you respond to an accident on their road. :roll: The big headache for private ambulances in Cleveland is the red-light cameras. (And why, oh why, would you put a red-light camera two blocks from an ER entrance?) Where I work, we've often received tickets in the mail with a nice color picture, clearly showing an ambulance with emergency lights on, going through an intersection 45 or 60 seconds after the red time. It's a joke. My employer fights them if the lights are flashing, otherwise they bill the crew for the $150 fine. And has anyone noticed just how short the yellow time is at an intersection once a camera is put in? Gee, it's almost as if the companies running these companies are ignoring traffic engineering standards and setting them to ensure that more motorists blow the red by a second. :ky: (And no, I haven't received one yet... I figure any green light that I come up to is probably stale enough that it's going to turn red on me before I get there...)

I had a nasty cold a week ago that had me coughing and sneezing incessantly. Well, over the weekend I found a walnut sized, palpable lump on my abd while tucking in my shirt. I met with my doctor Monday and confirmed what I suspected - I developed a hernia at one of the incision sites from my lap choly two years ago. I meet with the surgeon on the 25th for him to examine and plan a course of action. I'd like to get it corrected before the end of the year since I have good health insurance from my full-time employer, but they are being bought with the deal to close in late December and our futures are very uncertain there. I talked to the ambulance company that I work part-time at and with my partner - they were very cool about it. (Not that I expected otherwise.) We're taking it very touch-and-go for the moment - I worked my regular shifts this week and likely will next, but if I notice any pain or if it is getting worse I'm to let them know ASAP and go out on leave. I'm also not picking up any extra shifts, being liberal in calling for lift assists when necessary, etc. I talked to my partner at length about it. I don't want to be out there not (no pun intended) pulling my weight and putting him at risk. That's putting him in a sucky situation and is one of my biggest concerns. On the other hand, he's not real keen about not having a regular partner that he can tolerate. For the moment, we'll see. I not sure I'm going to make it worse since I do all my lifting with my legs already - I've never been an upper body strength kind of guy. We worked two shifts this week and I didn't have any issues - but I also know that all it takes is one wrong twist or move to hurt yourself on this job. I figure this will pretty much put me out of commission working on the ambulance until the end of the year if I elect to have the surgery done. (Which I would rather do now, as opposed to finding out who the on-call surgeon is some night at 3am should I develop complications. ) Obviously, it would be nice to keep banking the extra income for school coming up in Jan., but looking over my budget, there are places I can cut back to make up the difference.

He's not the first person to get a DUI and he won't be the last. How long do you hold a boneheaded move over his head? Forever? That's certainly your prerogative, but I think that's pretty extreme - convicted felons get more rhythm from most people. Don't expect me to believe that you've never done something stupid before. Full Disclosure: I had a DUI over 10 years ago. I'm considerably less stupid now than I was then - at least when it comes to things like drinking and driving. Edit: And while I don't reflexively defend folks who drink and drive, if someone in their early-mid 20's gets one and it's more than 5 years old, I'm certainly more inclined to think they were just an idiot as opposed to a menace to society. (Although, I see after the fact that the OP was older than that.)

Yes it was. Both the PD and FD had some layoffs a couple of years ago. As I understand it, most have been brought back on the job and CFD is planning an exam in July 2009. Of course, this is the same city that is still offering jobs to people whom they gave conditional employment offers to in 2002... guys who took the test in 1998. So caveat emptor. http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/07/cl..._academy_1.html

http://www.cleveland.com/realtimenews/inde...nd_paramed.html Cleveland's EMS Union is finally getting in to gear to do what EMS management did not to - attempt to stop the gradual takeover of EMS functions by the Cleveland Fire. One CFD'er I know told me the ALS Engine program at CFD isn't very popular with the rank-and-file. (Granted, this is an n=1 sample size.) Apparently, CFD management took some FF's who had their EMT-P, determined what house they wanted an ALS Engine at, and moved them in and the assigned crew out. That didn't go over very well. Also, Cleveland EMS started staging a squad in the neighborhood and racing CFD to any runs. So, basically, the current situation is lose-lose.

Everything is "flyover country" is Midwest to the New England/NYC crowd. Michigan, Ohio, Iowa... whatever it is "down there."

My girlfriend started a new job last week as a professor at Heidelberg College, so the news from exciting Seneca County, OH has been added to daily reading. I was interested in learning if this rural county contracted EMS out to a private company as some counties do, or if they were strictly volunteer. Looks like they're pretty much volunteer once you get outside of the Tiffin city limits, but that they're considering starting to transition to some paid ALS. http://www.advertiser-tribune.com/page/con.../id/507493.html "Majors said [this] would be a short-term solution while the county begins long-term planning for paid ambulance service." Sounds like a good long-term goal to me. I just wish he hadn't floated the first option of a paramedic fly car as it will give the county commissioners an out to latch on to when they determine how they're going to budget this. Edit: I'm still searching to see what headway was made, if any, since this article ran in July.

Well, I've been an EMT-B for about a year now and working part-time in the field. Almost all EMS is fire based around here and I don't have any desire to be a firefighter - so that closes a lot of doors. Additionally, I realized I wanted to learn more and do more with medicine. I was about to apply to a paramedic program through the Cleveland Clinic EMS Academy when I had sort of an epiphany ... I could get my EMT-P and play with the lights and siren and pretend I knew something about medicine - or I could go learn about medicine. So, I looked back over my college transcripts. (I only completed 2 years towards my bachelor's degree when I dropped out of school to join the dot.com boom - thinking I'd just finish it part-time down the road. *cough* Right.) This nice thing is, I got most of my general education classes out of the way - you know, all that time where you say, "Darn it, when will I get to the stuff I really want to learn about?" Anyways, received the letter today that I've been accepted to Cleveland State University as a transfer student. I'll likely drop back from working the 2-3 nights a week as an EMT-B, down to a shift or two a month after the 1st of the year - at least as long as the full time job is still here (but with us getting bought, that's not looking so good). I enjoy the part-time job and the people I work with, but long-term it's better for me to suck it up and focus on my studies if I really want to change careers.

There wouldn't be such a shortage if paramedics made a living wage. Requiring education from accredited institutions is the first step in the necessary path that leads to real education and real wages. NREMT announced this change months ago and it's just starting to hit the news. I imagine it has been in the works for a while, so I hope they don't back down. However, what I think we'll see happen is a lot of states that currently require students take the NR for state licensure will go back to offering their own. I hope I'm wrong, because I can't see where further Balkanization is a good thing.

LMAO. That is so wrong.

Heh, I do this to a very limited degree. I'll pre-write date/time/truck number/pt. name enroute. I'll also start the first line of my narrative in a fill-in-the-blank format. For example: "Dispatched to (address or facility name) for a (x) y.o (race) (gender), A&OX (X)." But I won't go beyond that first sentence. Honestly, I doubt it saves me any time, but I seem to have gotten in to the habit of doing it. Yes, there are people out there who will write an entire run report before ever assessing a patient. Steer clear of them since it will bite them in the backside someday when a pt. goes south. After all, this is a team sport - even if you're driving, that doesn't mean you can't have some uncomfortable Q&A sessions after with your employer, some lawyers, your state EMS board, etc.

Great story, thanks for sharing. We all have brain farts - welcome to the club.

How much do you have to drink before you'll allow the manufacturer of this clothing shoot you with a .38 for your story?