Just Plain Ruff

2 hours ago, Doc_115thSigBn said:

I just thought it oddly coincidental that we had a fellow last week wanting to write a book based upon the experiences of the folks here on the forum. My impression was that he was going to write the book in 1st person plagiarizing our experiences as his own.  His lack of integrity by writing a book that way would bring shame and blame to everyone affiliated with EMS.  There is also something that just doesn't ring true about the second guy.  Did he attempt to get his book vetted or credentialed by EMS professionals?  Does his book offer the EMS field any new knowledge or techniques? 

which one are you referring to?  I sort of rmember the one you are referring to but I cannot think of it.  Was it the one where he asked for all the funny stories we had in the field?  

I've been in the field and out of the field for over 20 years.  I have enough stories for 2-3 books.  Why should those of us with this many stories that are our own give you ours?  I'm just curious.  

But I do wish you the best.  

If you do write this and make it a e-book make sure you don't price it too high.  

How many pages is this book? 

is it a in the hand book or is it a e-book?

Mike, absolutely not, in my opinion, cost should not be a consideration and that is why I'm a complete and total advocate of these membership plans that many helicopter services have but then again, when many of the helicopter flights are proven to be non-medically necessary(i have many that I know of personally in my years in EMS) some of those membership plans do not cover those flights.  

My family is covered by two plans. one for the eastern portion of my state and the other for the southern.  We go to both areas on a semi regular basis and those areas are covered by completely different helicopter services.  

yes, discretion is a very very good option.

But one issue is this,  patients often don't have a choice, they get what they get.  Not really any other industry is this way.  Not saying thats a bad thing but in most other industries we have the ability to say, I don't like your price so I'm going with option B - unless you - option A can drop your price to meet option B's price.  

In my area the Helicopter service LifeFlight Eagle has a membership plan, for 65 bucks a year, it covers your entire family.  They take what your insurance pays and then the membership plan pays the rest.  you don't see a bill.  unfortunately, you cannot go retroactive and get it after the fact.  So unless you have it, you are on the hook for a possible 40K bill.  

It is up to us as providers on many occasions to use discretion and only call the helicopter when it's truly needed and not because the person has a membership plan (yes I've seen this happen countless times) or call them because the local small town hospital doesn't have a orthopedic surgeon and the patient has an isolated knee injury (yes I saw this as well - the medic didn't want to drive the 65 miles to the nearest ortho surgeon so she flew the patient).  The patient got stuck with the entire 35k bill because the entire flight was denied.  Even the membership plans have their denials.  

so as providers it's incumbent upon us to use the helicopters diligently and correctly.  

Thoughts, discussion Right or wrong?  

https://www.ems1.com/air-medical-transport/articles/227698048-Is-affordable-air-ambulance-transport-a-right/?NewsletterID=&utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Exclusives1LeftTitle&utm_campaign=EMS1Member&cub_id=usr_rYgxvJiMpoxX5g7Z

Accelerated EMT courses you get out of them what you put in them.  

Why the hurry?  

Why waste time - just go this route -  https://www.emtfiretraining.com/emt-b-course.php   zero to hero in less than 30 seconds.  

One of their requirements   Safely administer medications (the student should safely, and while performing all steps of each procedure, properly administer medications at least 15 times to live patients)

Let's hope they are live patients - can't give meds to dead patients.  

apparantly no one from nashville.  I guess I will spend time on Music row sightseeing alone.  what a way to be bored.  

I hope Nashville BBQ is good.  

fire away,  we love questions.

Been to Seattle, it's a great city, but too liberal for me.  ha ha  but I really enjoyed my visit to Bremerton when I was working at Cerner.  US Naval Base Bremerton brings back some really fond memories.  

Not a single person from Nashville?

the original link is gone. 

i will be in Nashville from April 17 thru April 20th.  If anyone wants to grab dinner on the 18 or 19th let me know.  

Ruffmeister Paramedic

First  you should reach out to the National Registry of EMT's   I believe the website is www.nremtp.org  but I could be off on that.  

find out what it takes to get your NREMTP for the states.  Email to them is returned if you go that route. 

then find whatever state you are looking to move to and look at their bureau of EMS website or whoever governs their EMS.  

Find out from that state what it takes to get your license in that state. 

Next, begin the process of getting licensure in that state.  

Not much help but hopefully it pushes you to the right places.  By the way one big caveat on this question

your BEST information will come directly from the NREMT and the respective states.  you can rely on information from this site for a lot of things but when it comes to your livelihood, NOTHING is better than speaking directly to the people in those orgs.  Trust me, it will save you time, money and possibly heart ache if you rely only on information received from this forum or another facebook forum you might be asking this in.  Not bashing any information you get from non-sanctioned sites but I've been there before and I only wish that I had talked to the people in the know rather than relied on info from internet experts.  Again not bashing any of the people here, we're good people.  

where do you want to work?  What overseas do you mean?  

have you done any research on this at all?  

Dr. Google is your friend,  a simple "how to become a paramedic in australia" netted me lots of information.  I suggest you do the same.  

I don't know much about Paramedics in Australia but there are several aussie medics here but I don't know how active they are on this forum.  

Several quesitons 

1.  Why do you want to be a paramedic in Australia - 

2.  Are you prepared to move to Australia and work there?  I don't believe paramedic is a essential job anymore so you would have to go through all the rigamorole of getting immigration status and you probably would not get it.  It's called Right to Work and these are the requirements to be qualified: 

an Australian citizen: a birth certificate, citizenship certificate or current passport is proof of eligibility. a permanent resident of Australia or New Zealand citizen who has entered Australia on a valid passport: you are allowed to stay and work in Australiawithout restriction.

3.  Their jobs aren't much different than medics in the states but the do go to more school if I remember right.  

Good luck if you are serious about this quest you are on.  

Why Sweden?

Why Sweden?

What education do you have now?  I think you would be better served by getting educated in Sweden if that's where you want to move.  I'm not sure of their education requirements but I would think they would require a longer education period that what we have here.  Would hate for you to get your paramedic here and then Sweden come back and say "Sorry Charlie, you don't have enough education so you need to start over"  

Here are some helpful links that were very very easy to find if you used Dr. Google. 

https://www.thelocal.se/discuss/index.php?showtopic=11839?showtopic=11839  This site says you ahve to get a nursing program done first and then add a year of paramedic on top of it.  

http://www.studyinstockholm.se/university/the-swedish-red-cross-university-college/

And if you think you are going to get a free educaiton in Sweden, according to my understanding, you have to be a citizen of Sweden to get the free schooling.  I could be wrong but I'm probably not according to a couple of websites I visited.  14K for a years program if what I'm seeing.  but again, I could be wrong.  

So why Sweden?

How quickly a call can go from routine to all hell breaking loose is this one.  I dont' have all the particulars but it sounds like they were caught completely off guard.  

RIP to the EMT's famly and the FDNY family.  

Prayers for speedy recovery of the injured medic.  

I gotta say, I miss Julia's wit

Yeah, when I read this, Mike's comment about Julia was the first thing that popped into my head.

"It's good you want to be an emt, maybe a latte and a couple of general courses will make you a great person for wanting to become a emt"

Ok, so you run 120K calls a  year with 30 people, you guys must get your butts handed to you on a regular basis. That's 328 calls a day.  Are you sure your call volume numbers are right?  that makes 13 calls an hour.  did you mean to type 12000 calls a year and not 120,000???

Or do you staff 30 people a day?  that would make a difference.  NOt busting your balls on your numbers but jeesh that's a lot of calls.  I think KC Mo runs about 80 thousand a year and they staff 35 ambulances a day I think and maybe more.  

But to your question 

Why not promote EMS to the local scouting organizations and I'm not just saying Boy Scouts of America,  look to the Trail LIfe USA and the American Heritage Girls as well as Girl Scouts.  

We are having a huge camp out on April 1st and we are bringing in the local police, fire and helicopter for a PR event.  

2 hours ago, Chris Jay said:

Thanks for your response.

A second question please.

Is there something else in medical program which takes almost the same time (like a month) to be trained in, that you can suggest tthan EMT?

My plight is this: My wife is in school doing her VN so I have to come up with all monthly bills and feed our family of 5. I am looking for areas that I can quickly realize like 15$ a hour with 40hrs or more in a week.

At the end of my wife 14months school and once she start working I should be going to school to do the same VN program but I need something quick to take us for the next 14 months.

 

Ok, so what is VN? is that vocational nurse?  

So you won't get your emt in a month at reputable programs - but if you move to Seattle, you can make 15 an hour.  Yeah I k now that was snarky.  and I don't know of any other medical program that you can get out of in a month and make 15 per hour.  They just dont make that kind of medical program.  I could be wrong but I'm probably not.  

But anyhow,  Are you just going to EMT school to get to 15 per hour and if you are, then you aren't doing this for the right reasons.  But with that being said,  what are you going to do during the time you are in school learning to be an EMT financial wise?  

You have to work right,  what are you doing right now and how much are you making.  

is there any way you can pick up an extra job until your wife gets out of school and then you can get  your education started.  You may have to delay your time in getting your emt until she get's out of school and support your family.  EMT school will still be there I assure you,  California is a EMT mill in and among itself, my understanding is that you can't throw a rock out of a BLS ambulance without hitting a EMT school.  

Good luck in making some hard decisions in the near future.  

Is EMS in the schools a thing in your area?  

What kind of PR events do you do?  

My one (at least that I can think of right now) piece of advice to me would be

Don't let your NREMT-P lapse

11 hours ago, MariB said:

To be this excited again. Research my old posts. I was too! 

I love being an EMT, most of the time. Rarely is it ever too exciting. I've had calls where the patient had diarrhea and didn't want to poop in their car. So they called 911.

i have had calls with people growing fungus up their legs and I didn't have Vicks in the rig so I smelled it all night. 

In the end, if you still feel like you are helping people and enjoy it after holding bags of puke, getting screamed at because they believe they are the King of Hearts and you didn't bow or kneeing down on the floor, realizing you just knelt in human feces... it might be the life for you.

As for becoming a volunteer firefighter, that is up to you. I provide support, but I'm terrified of fire

I remember your posts MariB and to see the person you have blossomed to be, let's hope our new excited poster becomes half the person you have become.  

ok, I'll ask the question that no one ever asks 

Why did  you drink and drive?  

But that question aside - You will find many of us on this site, myself included that you won't get much support from in your quest to become an EMT.  The reason why I say this is one of the worst things we see is the senseless disaster that are drunk driving accidents.  They are 100% preventable by the DRUNK who decided to get drunk and then get behind the wheel of the car and drive, then hitting a family or a kid or whatnot and killed them or maimed them.  Again, this is 100% preventable and we in this business are tasked with picking up the pieces of this 100% preventable disaster.  

So this is why we don't have much sympathy for anyone who comes here with stories of having been arrested for drunk driving and wanting to be an EMT.  

Now that being said, you need to call your state EMS licensing bureau and talk to them directly and ask them about your situation. They and only they can tell you if you can get an EMT license.  Then if they say Yes you can, then you then need to call the prospective EMS Agencies you might want to work for and ask them if you can even get insured by them as a 21 year old emt with a previous reckless driving charge on your license which for the places I have worked, reckless driving held just as much NASTY connotations as a drunk driving charge and that person application who had that history on their driving record was immediately placed into the circular file and shredded.  

I hope you never make the stupid decision of drinking and driving ever again.  And yes it was stupid and I hope you learned your lesson. hopefully you know it could have been a lot worse than just getting arrested and ticketed like you were.  

But I do wish you the best in your future endeavors.  But I also do second MedicGirls question,  why do you want to be an EMT when you have a degree in Microbiology.  I'm sure that degree can get you more money than a 8-10 dollar an hour or so EMT job.