buckeyedoc

I've seen this once in the field and once in the ER. We were about 15 minutes from the ER with the patient. He is uncomfortable, but not in pain. He would cringe a bit when it would fire, but nothing serious. Ironically, his son was his cardiologist and was out of town at a convention and couldn't be reached. His daugher-in-law, also a cardiologist, was in town and beat us to the hospital. I never followed up, so I don't know how they corrected it. We had him on a monitor and a saline lock in place. The one in the ER was coming in by squad as I was ending my shift so I wasn't around when they treated him and I never thought to ask about him. I know there was a cardiologist in the ER when I left. We had called him in for one of his patients who had come in, but I doubt it both patients were his.

I think the AHA is going to hell in a handcart. We had to re-certify our instructors with the new guidelines. How stupid can they be. I'm looking at changing to ASHI and abandoning AHA all-together.

My daughter is in first grade and she has homework every night. She was working on fractions. One of the pictures had 2 candy bars, "A" and "B". Candy bar "A" was definitely larger than "B". The question asked, "Which candy bar would you rather have 1/2 of?" I was helping Hannah with her homework and asked her which one was the right answer. She said "B", the smaller of the 2 candy bars. I asked her again and she said "B" again. I was sitting there with a confused look on my face. Hannah asked if I wanted her to explain why she chose "B". She said that because chocolate is bad for you, the smaller 1/2 would be better for you. I knew that when she took her homework back the next day, the teacher would want to know why she chose "B" as well. I got a phone call from her teacher after school about the homework. She couldn't quit laughing about how mature Hannah's answer was. She's too smart for her own good.

Actually, I carry one in my backpack and I have the computerized PDR, but you're right, a simple field guide is about all there is for most.

We had issues with a local hospital that the medic students weren't allowed to intubate. Of course, it came down to the bottom line. Because the hospital wasn't a certified "teaching" hospital, they anesthesiologists weren't able to bill the patient for the intubations. It always comes down to the bottom line. I think that there are several areas that our medic program could have improved on, but overall, it is a good program. There are good and bad programs all over the country. There is something to remember, though. You only get out of a program what you put into a program.

You are very correct. All they care about is pass rate figures...and that's a shame. Fortunately, our instructors were wonderful and taught us quite a bit about pharmacology and other stuff of course. I don't think we did enough lab time, but that's the consensus of most programs.

This is the very reason the new EMT-I (99) certification is going to get someone killed. They do not have the time to go into the depth of pharmacology that paramedic schools do...and paramedic schools don't even do enough. The Intermediate curriculum (of which I have several friends in) goes over the "A" portion of the 1st post. Here's the s/s, give NTG. That's the philosophy of the EMT-I(99). IMHO, the new EMT-I(99) is a stop-gap measure to fill the national paramedic shortage and it's going to cost lives and $$$. I don't have confidence in the vast majority of EMT-I(99) programs out there. That's my $0.02. Doc

that's sweet.

If you can't come here and vent, where can you go. There are dozens of people who have been through similar incidents and know how you are feeling. Especiall those of us who've been around a while **Dust**. It is tragic that the mother murdered her daughter by drinking and driving. Doc

I agree with checking out the trucks at the start of the shift. I make sure our drug bag is secured. We are issued drug bags through an EMS council and exchange them at local hospitals after we use it. I've had several issues with the D50 exploding or the seals not going through both zippers and the pouch being open. I check in my vent and make sure I have vent circuits. I make sure I check all the O2 bottles (we have 1 main and 4 portables). I check my airway kit and make sure all my tubes are there and my handles and blades work. I make sure my monitor has enough batteries and electrodes and make sure the adult and pedi defib/pacer pads are there. I check my first in bag to make sure that it's all there. I make sure the IV kit is complete and I have plenty of fluids as well as the specific drip sets are there for the local hospitals. I also check to make sure that the vehicle's fluids are ok. All in all, it takes me and my partner about 30 minutes to check the truck in. The shift that relieves us is as thorough as we are. The shift that we relieve is terrible. We have to empty their trash from the truck nearly every shift. They never re-stock linens when the use them and we always have to make the cot up after their shift. One shift, we had a vent run right out of the gate and the vent was no where to be found. The off-going crew hadn't turned in their paperwork so I couldn't see where it may have been left. Neither of the crew could be reached. We went 5 hours without being able to track down the vent.

There are 2 hospitals that I will draw lab work on pre-hospital. One is a small community ER and I have a wonderful rapport with the ER staff. There are a couple of medics that they will accept our blood draws, but for the most part, they pitch them from others. The other hospital is where I work as a medic in the ER. Our lab will not accept specimens without a lab code. I will draw the samples, put them in a small specimen bag and put my lab code on it in accordance with hospital policies. All blood draws are tracked for errors in labeling and hemolysis. As of now, I have issues with about 2% of my submitted labs.

We have one medic unit that has the ability to treat and transport patients up to 1600 pounds. It has a bariatric cot that is much wider than normal Stryker cots. The truck itself has a hydraulic lift on the back so that the patient does not have to be lifted by the crew.

Do any services you know of use squmpers? For those who don't know what a squmper is, it is a fire engine with a patient compartment as well. What are your thoughts on this? Below are a few samples. STFD Engine 92 STFD Engine 93

We use the ParaPac on almost a daily basis. I enjoy using it. It is easy to use and works well. It is quicka and simple to set up.

IMHO, the new EMT-I(99) is a law suit waiting to happen. They are given the ability to administer all of these medications and spend very little time, compared to paramedic schools, learning the pharmacology behind the meds. My partner is just completing his intermediate schooling. He has said numerous times that they didn't cover meds very well. More like, if this happens, give this med and not really learning in depth. Narcan is in the new DOT curriculum and as well it should be. Morphine is also in the curriculum and I would like to believe that if you can give a med that can send someone into respiratory arrest that you can give it's antagonist. Then again, maybe I am just thinking to logically.

Dust, I wasn't referring to you. I was just making a general comment about how this post has gone to crap. I know any patient at any time can make an accusation about anything and then your character comes into question. I know we (EMS community as a whole) does not treat every patient the same. Our attitude toward the frequent flyer who is so drunk that he calls 911 at 03:30hrs because he's stubbed his toe and wants to be transported to the ER is in NO WAY the same as our attitude towards the little old lady who has had chest pains for 2 days but didn't want to inconvenience anyone by calling 911.

If there is any patient, male or female, who is mentally unbalanced and a witness might be warranted, you can bet your butt I will have a witness. Especially when the referring facility requests it. It's amazing how a question I pose to the City about other services' policies and procedures regarding crew integrity turns into an attack on someone's motives.

Hammer, well, I am the original poster and yes, I do worry about false accusations. I've spent 14 years building my repuation and I'm not letting anyone, male or female, have an opportunity to tarnish it. So you don't think someone who has tried to kill themself as a way to get attention would make up a story to try to get some attention. If so, you're living in a fool's paranoid. Some people will stop any nothing to have their 15 minutes of fame. Any accusation, whether false or not, is going to get the person pulled from the road until the matter can be investigated, regardless if the accusation is of a sexual nature, an abuse issue or theft issue. Also, in case you missed it, the nurse at the ER was the one who asked about a female crew member. Perhaps she knew something I didn't. If I wasn't able to find my ER tech friend, I would have made the run regardless. Now, hammer, if I may direct your attention to the large, red text from your quoted post. My partner at work has his career firefighter certification and his paramedic card. He tested for a large fire department and scored a 96% on the written exam. The dept. had 190 people take the exam. He took the physical agility and was the 4th highest score. He had his psych. interview and passed (don't ask me how ). He received a letter in the mail stating that he had to retake the physical agility and scored a bit higher than the first time. A couple of months goes by and doesn't hear anything from administration. He assumed that they had their list and he wasn't on it. Well, he got another letter in the mail saying the same thing, report for the physical agility test. He went to the chief's office to find out why he had to take the same physical agility 3 times. The secretary said that they didn't have enough women or minorities pass all parts of the exam process, so they were re-administering all exams until they had a pool of enough women or minorities. Regardless if I am a white male in the US or a black male in the US, if I bust my arse and provide for my family, then I'm privledged. I'm not privileged simply because I am white in the US. So bug off!

There it is! I was waiting for that. Excellent movie!

We do have our first initial and last name embroidered on our polo shirts and our certification level embroidered below our name. Other than that, no patches except on our dress shirts.

I'm in Ohio, too. I live and work in SW Ohio. I make a good wage for what I do. I would be hard pressed to make what I make at the local full-time fire departments. I don't have insurance, because my wife has it at work. She's an RN and makes good money. Like medstudent30 said, my kids (all 3 of them) have a nice home, clothes on their back and they don't go hungry. We're able to do special things (ie. weekend vacations, nice dinners out, movies and the like). My kids have a nice selection of Old Navy clothes and a few Target items.

You're absolutely right, AK. It is a double standard. However, statistically, the odds are a woman will be the one making the claim. You want to talk about a double standard. I applied for a full-time fire dept job. I passed the written, agility, polygraph and interview. I was told, in a "matter-of-fact" way, by the black assistant chief that if I were black, I would have the job. The city was on a hire a minority kick. I think this is total BS. THIS IS NOT TO TURN INTO A RACIAL POST!!! I don't agree with anyone, except military, getting additional points or preference simply because of their skin or gender. We hear about Equal Opportunity Employers and that is total horse crap. I was told by a judge friend of mine that a court case would never stick and "reverse discrimination" doesn't exist. Granted, in theory it does, but not practically.

At my full-time job, we were uniform shirts without a badge. Then again, we're private EMS. The FD I work for has uniform shirts with badges, but they're for parades and the regular high profile stuff. We wear polo shirts with our logo on it as our duty uniform. I personally like the polo shirts.

Before I changed stations within the same company, my old partner was a basic. We walked into McDonalds one day and jokingly, he asked if they were hiring. Well, they were and he was hired on the spot making a dollar more on the hour at McD's. He didn't have to worry about AIDS, MRSA, C-Diff or any other contagious crap. He has no plans on getting back into EMS and is working on his manager-ship at McDonalds.