Just Plain Ruff

do your firefighters even remember how to put water on a fire?

yeah, the day of the mom and pop service are gone. It's either fire based ems or the big alphabet services. One or the other and if you are lucky to be working for a small independently owned services, count yourself lucky until the alphabetasaurus sets his eyes on your company.

Fully taxpayer funded pensions?

To PIggy Back on another current thread regarding the past. What do you think is the future of EMS in the next 5 years? The next 10 years? What do you see in the next 20 years?

That's a topic for another thread!! Which I will start.

And many times Diesel even won't work.

One service does not a medic make, that is the reason why in my medic class you were not allowed to do all your ride time with one service only. With reviews like this you should by all means be working with your clinical coordinators to determine what you need to do to find the root cause of these reviews. This quote is KEY here Blake::::: Blake is still struggling with confidence. This shift the pt's were all light yellow or greens & Blake did ok for the most part. Still has to be reminded of things to be done, that I feel with this type of pt, he should be able to handle without question Your medic preceptor is telling you something. He's telling you that you are missing things, he's telling you that you lack a consitent focus on these easy patients and he's worried that you will in the end really flub up on a red or critical patient But you know what, that's what clinicals are for, for you to learn, to grow and to be under the wing of a seasoned paramedic that can guide you to get these easy greens' and yellows till they are second nature to you and to make the reds and blues to where you can work them with minimal preceptor interventions. I strongly urge you to ask to be moved to a 2nd service and be put with a strong field preceptor at that service. One who has more experience than a year or two. Someone who your clinical coordinator knows personally and can say that they will do a very good job in evaluating you and working with you. One who just doesn't sit there during his shift and do nothing with you, but one who will actually help you learn. I had one of those medics and it was the best thing I ever had. This is not the end of the world. Who cares if you have to start your clinicals over, Yeah yeah yeah, it's more hours, but sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make a omelet and maybe with you, you need a couple more eggs broken. All your skills should still count, all your interventions should still count, you are just starting over. Talk to your coordinators about having weekly meetings regarding your progress and if your new preceptor says that you've improved there should be kill points in your clinical hours that you can implement that would allow you and your clinical coordinator to stop and say "hey Blake's got it now, let's have him do one more week and that's all he needs" or something like that. If you show real improvement and the like, then you should be able to stop the additional ride time and progress on to the end of your class time. Good luck, take it from someone who's been in your shoes, (I have) and I became a pretty damn good medic. Just remember, the person who graduates last, or 45 out of 47 in his class and still gets his medic license is still called what?????? (hint - answer is "Medic") This Doesn't mean you are stupid ok!!!

I remember hearing a grizzled old medic say that one form of extrication was taking one tow truck on one end of a car and another on the other and just yanking. C-spine be damned back then.

Yeah Mike, a lot of times there is animosity between LEO's and Ems and vice versa. That animosity I would hope ends when either one needs the other in an emergency. The info you gave above is pretty cool. I was driving in Little Rock the other day and I saw the strangest thing on a police car. ON the front end hood and the back of the car were about 10 cameras mounted pointed towards the ground. Do you or anyone out there know what those cameras are for? I was told that was so they could run every license on the road without having to call it each in to dispatch. that it was a pilot project at certain departments. Any ideas Mike?

Yeah, reminiscing, I started EMS in 1993. Lifepak 3, Tackle boxes for drug kits wooden spinal boards huge suction machines that if you ran over them with a pumper the damn things still worked. hand operated hydraulic extrication tools manual d-stick rather than machines that do it for you now mast pants no cell phones did I mention no cell phones UHF and vhf were it. If you wanted medical control contact in a house or a building you just picked up the phone and called as long as you had the number memorized.

I heard that you can't post the truth on the intranetz either. I learned that too.

But the emails will be her saving grace. Emails that were sent and no follow up could be considered slanderous and that could get her a big payday. But then again, we are hearing only the media version. That's why I always try to reserve judgement because we all know the media is always RIGHT every single time. Right?

I did the same thing but it was a russian speaking teacher for her russian speaking student.

If what she says is true and they wrote that stuff about her, then they better get their checkbook out. But unfortunately, her rep is ruined by getting fired for the reason of not being able to get a blood pressure. If that's the reason they use and fire her for then who wants to hire a caregiver who can't get a blood pressure??? That's why her reputation is ruined, not the emails which I'll bet weren't made public unless the termination hearings at the city council were public and then that opens a whole other can of worms since personnel matters are supposed to be private and held in closed session.

The last time I logged into the EMTLife site the popup showed that I had been banned but being it was April 1st it was a april fools joke but the funny thing was that I had signed up on April 1st. So when I logged back in after signing in, I got the ban message pop up and that REALLY Pissed me off. I didn't put the April Fools Joke together until later but it really pissed me off. They thought it was funny but those who only go there a couple of times a month or year probably didn't find it that funny. But the popup message appeared every time I logged in that day so it got really really old after the 2nd time I logged in and that is why I left.

Yes Yes several companies have made the news when they cut their employees hours from over 30 to 28 hours because they won't have to offer healthcare insurance if they work them less than 30 hours. Denny's in Florida(at least one owner of about 20 denny's) did this as well as he slapped a 5% surcharge on everyone's bill calling it a Obamacare surcharge. Stryker the company who makes the ER cots and the ambulance cots we love so much has announced layoff's for next year (if the news is to be believed) due to the coming increases in premiums and other tax increases that will go into effect if the fiscal cliff is not averted(scam if you ask me the fiscal cliff). There is more to come people. Hope some of us have a fallback plan.

I have heard that the mods there are just a group of clique members. Don't sweat it. I've been a member forever over there and I've not returned because of how they run things there. You get so much more here with a greater concentration of mature people here than on that site anyday of the week. Stick here and you will be better for it. I'll bet that I'll be banned from EMTLife for this post.

When even those who supposedly wrote and run the ACO act and are the gate keepers are making this shit up on a day by day basis Doc, who the hell are we supposed to trust in telling us who to believe. The AARP is head over heals in love with the ACO because they stand to make billions (maybe millions) in profits on the supplemental insurance plans that they will endorse that will help those supposed seniors out. So until the ACO is fully implemented and Remember when Nancy Pelosi said "we have to pass the bill to see what's in it" she said the truth because even she who was right there in it and was one of the authors (I think but don't hold me to that), even those in congress who were bowing down to the altar of this bill and doing the dance to the bill, they didn't even know what was in it. Listen, this bill is so huge and ginormous and there is no way that we will know how royally screwed that the american people really will be by this new law. Sure there are good things in it but I'm a pessimist and I'm very worried that the bad way way way way outweighs the good in this law. I'm usually right in this kind of thing and I so hope not to be. but mark my words, we have not seen the true impact and won't see it for many years and by then it will be too late for many industries. Unless your health insurer is very financially strong, unless your employer is willing to go to bat for your healthcare insurance plan that you have now, unless your ambulance service is willing to wade through thousands of pages of new regulations and billing requirements from the hundreds of insurers, you have not seen anything yet in how you do your job. Buckle up guys, it's going to be a bumpy road.

Customer service skills. How to deal with difficult people eg nurses.

Convenience Store, New Orleans, foreigner, that story is plausible all except the not recognizing the ambulance.

The guy who booted the ambulance was fired. I'm sure a lawsuit by the patient is in the works.

This will change your driving habits and your use of seatbelts if you don't wear them now.

This did not happen on the two ambulance transports that my wife had during her pregnancy. The payments were sent directly to the ambulance providers at deeply discounted rates to them which left us with 600.00 bills each time. What the hell do we have insurance for if the insurance carrier will only pay 35% of the ambulance transport? I may just put her in the car next time.

Is it true or is it not true that you are going to be a daddy Biebs?????? I refer to this Facebook post as exhibit A. You have to scroll down and see. But it's there. https://www.facebook.com/justin.sleffel But here's the text of the status message Des had her first appointment today. I can't be sure, but I think I saw horns on the sono.

I already responded via facebook.