Just Plain Ruff

I concur with Asys First off Welcome to the city. Yes experience is golden at times but I know a heck of a lot of excellent paramedics who went from emt-b to emt-p immediately one after the other. I am one of those people who did that and I do consider myself quite competent as a medic. But on the other hand, there are enough bad paramedics who had oodles of experience as a basic and suck badly as a medic. It's all in how you apply yourself and learn the ropes. I do agree that there should be some sort of experience buffer but hey, some people do not have a lot of time or money to spend going to school. As for the City here, Clicking on search and entering a search phrase will get you anything you need referenced on this site. Google works really well by typing in a question and many of the links returned will take you directly to where you need to go. It's all good, no "ruff"led feathers on my end here. We're glad you are here. Good luck in the EMS life - it's a good one.

3 posts and youve already made some people here mad by not following the simple rules of this forum - search by using the search function and looking at google - Methinks this might be a record!!!!

http://www.foxnews.com/ See the picture of the rescuer saving the poor tractor driver. What was he thinking?

Criminal background checks are pieces of cake. For this job I'm at now, I need a mid level government clearance to do work at military hospitals and military bases. The background check there puts criminal background checks to shame. If you have something to hid then shame on you, if you have nothing to hide then [sup:769b40bbd5]GET over it [/sup:769b40bbd5]and go on with your day. It's not a invasion of privacy if you agreed to it on taking the job. You probably gave more information out with more of a chance to harm you in the future when you filled out the health insurance forms for your insurance.

It's amazing but since I consult in the Emergency room field, I've been to about 25 emergency rooms all over the country and have taken patients to every ER in the KC MO area and I have seen some who with hold pain meds an awful lot and others who give meds out freely. Case in point, I just rolled off a project in southern colorado and their ER gives Dilaudid out as first line pain meds. A ER in New York City gives demerol and also toradol almost exclusively(this was in 2002 though not sure what they do now though). It is amazing what pain can bring about - case in point - ED medical director having kidney stone pain, was given dilauded for the pain and after he was back on the job their pain admin guidelines changed. I agree with the "My pain is my own and no one but myself owns the pain" We need to be a little more proactive on the administering pain meds. I think if we were to experience the same delay in getting pain meds like our patients experience, I think we'd be a little more quick to get them relief.

well O9 with what you have as your occupation "fart sniffer" explains a lot.

unfortunately, the times we live in is that once a fire department starts to respond on calls with the ambulance then the public begins to have an expectation that the FD responds to all calls be they fire calls, ems or wrecks. Once your fire department starts responding and it becomes expected - no if's ands or buts. The public is so critical of tax money being spent that they do not want a bunch of firemen sitting in their station waiting for a fire which if I have heard right that about 5% of all calls for service for the fire department are fire related and the other 95% are medical and non fire calls. The public will begin to question just what are those pretty red trucks and those buff firemen doing all day- sitting and doing nothing all day. That's the perception of some people. the public also begins to become vocal and critical when the fire department has a station with fire fighters who are EMT's and a cardiac arrest or some type of critical call and the firefighters stay in the station while grandma or gramps or mom or dad or the 3 year old who drowns in the back yard pool. The public can be a brutal voice and unfortunately we can never win.

Great job trusting your instincts Nussy I had a similar patient a while ago - but their ecg was wierder When they had pain their ST Elevation was incredible but when the pain subsided then the ecg returned to normal. The cardiologist who did the PCTA said that there was a large clot that was not too large to cause complete occlusion and it sort of just fluttered around the narrowing of the artery but when it got lodged at the narrowing the elevation recurred and then when we gave MS and the pain went away so did the pressure in the artery allowing the clot to float again. It was really incredible hearing how this happened to the patient. They then delivered the clot busting drug directly to the clot itself and it dissolved and the patient has had no recurrence of this problem ever since.

The majority of the systems I've worked has been a 2 medic ambo and thats it, cardiac arrests, overdoses, shootings(gets the cops there though) and other calls all get one ambulance and 2 medics on it. Wrecks unless extrication is required only got us too. If extrication was needed then a rescue. PD/sheriff/highway patrol - came if they weren't busy or were bored.

Ace I don't think Jcicco knows who you are. Otherwise he'd be the ignorant one. Were you having a good or a bad day when posting those? I suspect you just came off your third 36 hour shift where you transported 4 courtney loves overdosed, 32 jesus Christ's with a time fixation and one person who survived the wheels of a subway train to live to tell about it. Other than that those were funny

It's not easy to report medication errors that you yourself have done but it has to be done. I've reported 3 errors in 15 years of practice. I've also reported medication errors on people who refused to report them themselves.

I think a filet knife to the throat at the level of the carotid would do it. could bleed out really quickly.

Well I'm into the 2nd episode for 35 minutes and have counted at least 5 errors. Also What the heck is with this guys uinform. There is a scene in the show that has the supervisor or someone saying their contract is up for review and with the professionalism that is lacking in this service I can imagine their contract will be pulled. Pain meds without orders Wow a scene with gloves on. HOLY SH(&()*T the female medic leaves a critical patient to go pee, I know when you gotta go you gotta go but good lord, Call another unit and go home sick. Then fire the son of a ()*)ch who gave her the lasix. Now the female medic comes back in the ambulance and realizes the tube is in the esophagus. I'm done with this show.

notify all receiveing facilities and ambulances with patients that there is the possibility of a chemical exposure and initiate decon procedures. Then call the FBI, ATF and other law enforcement officials. .

I read somewhere that seizures are a late indicator for muscarine poisoning. If that is true then this lady has already probably suffered some irreparable liver damage and will more than likely die.

A lot of great replies. I for one thought the story lines were ok but the procedures were awful. Amazing that you defibrillate a v-tach patient and bam she comes back from Asystole. Yee ha

Here's one to think on, If we are going not going to mandate helmets, let's mandate organ donation laws. That way when the moron on the bike who didn't wear a helmet crashes and dies then we can pare down our long list of organ donation recipients. no helmet laws + mandatory organ donation = more transplants

I believe I have to tend to agree especially with the last code they worked.

Thoughts observations etc etc.

Not to beat a dead horse but the last 3 jobs I've held paid nearly 40-60K a year depending on overtime and on call pay. I'm a full time consultant now so I make significantly more but if I were to want to return to EMS then I'd drop back to the last service I worked for.

SO Medic8 what are you tryin to say "Ruff" out there huh? HE EH

I was thinking the same thing but going a little further, I've seen patients that old how have a urinary infection and became septic. Had one present this way a year or so ago The other thought would be diverticulitis that might have perforated her bowel?

This is really frightening. EMT-J next thing we'll have is EMT-K (for kaopectate) EMT-L for Lidocaine, EMT-v for versed do you get the idea??? This is also one of the key reasons that we are not respected as a profession. We keep adding -X's but we can't get the original two correct(emt-b and EMT-P). I think we need to concentrate on getting the basics correct instead of making up and adding so many additional certifications/licensure.

I took one of the inaugural classes of the 12 lead program based on Dales book. As a class member we were able to send the book to Dale and he autographed it. I will cherish that book forever as it is a very personal and wonderful message he scribed in the book. That would be the first book Id recommend. there is another book by a woman cannot remember the name but it is by far the most thorough and indepth book on cardiology geared towards paramedics and nurses that I've found.

WOW there's nothing else I can provide except that I've been in your situation before, I took a 4 week vacation to Australia and travelled the OUtback. Did a lot of thinking and came back with a new perspective. I think you need to get some counseling or EAP assistance. If your agency doesnt have one then you might be able to use the local hospitals EAP if they have one. You might need to pay for it but right now you sound at your end and that is not a good place to be. Be safe and good luck.