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temsp40

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Everything posted by temsp40

  1. I have triaged all your patients, and I am wondering what your criteria for triage is, are you working on the "phenomenom" of SMART triage the the military and several other states are using, or are you planning on utilizing some other triage standard. Based on your scenario, the first patient is deemed yellow because of the inability to ambulate. The second patient is green, although she is an OB patient and the final patient begins as red, but my guess is this patient will rapidly deteriorate to a black category. These determinations are made upon initial triage and will be further triaged when they arrive at the treatment areas. I am a Paramedic in MA.
  2. "I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you...we are in charge of our attitudes." --Charles Swindoll
  3. Why am I still in EMS? Probably because I am a glutton for punishment..... Actually, it is because I really enjoy my job, I like being a paramedic and I can't imagine doing any other job. I actually left a pretty decent paying job in a truck repair shop (yes, one of the companies that makes those great big am-bu-la-sauruses) because I REALLY hated my job. 14 years of EMS and still loving it..... P40
  4. been there, done that and it was all my partners faulty
  5. -paresis -- weakness or inability to move wpw
  6. Unfortunately you didn't give the option of "Which One?" followed by the same options. Although most of my answers would have been either "rig" or "truck", I do work on a couple of them that fall in the "giant piece of expletive" category
  7. Damned Canadian drugs! I bet it costs less too! :mrgreen:
  8. poor .....oh yeah, that's EMS!
  9. don't forget -- equipment. 1. All gear bags shall be replaced with brand new at the start of every call. 2. If you are a paramedic, you will be issued a brand new monitor/defibullator/pacer/microwave/satellite communications/cool looking thingy every shift. 3. Your ambulance will be washed by the little gnomes kept in the outside compartment after every run so that it never looks like you have been running non-stop from one end of the world to the other. Runs 1. We never have to go for the "my tooth hurts" and explain to the patient that most ED's do not have a dentist on staff. 2. We never get the call for the "code brown" and the staff just can't handle it. 3. All patients for all runs will be located either (a) on the first floor with plenty of room to get the rack in or ( near the elevator (which is plenty large enough to accomodate your cot, your partner and all your new gear) so as to aid with extrication. 4. Exception to rule 3, any patient that requires extensive extrication will be deathly ill, require multiple agency response (up to and possibly including the Army Corps of Engineers) and will have the patient require your presence to save their life. 5. At least once per shift you will end up working with the "new guy" and saving one of their patients due to their inherent ineptness because this is their first day on the job. New Employee Orientation 1. On your first day, we guarantee you will be exposed to one of the following: multiple gunshot victim, cardiac arrest victim that will make it, birth, enraged psych patient who will hold you hostage until your partner does something about it, or an MCI that you will have to deal with the fact that people will die. 2. Your partner will be our most senior and grizzled paramedic who will make your life a living hell, this person will ensure that there is absolutely nothing you can do right, this person will ensure that everytime a run is completed you are to clean and decon the entire unit, and eventually will require you to save their life. 3. You will be assigned to the busiest sector available and get in trouble for not being finished with one run when you are assigned the next one.
  10. dispatched for impaled object in finger. Arrived to find 6 y/o male with a staple through the figner nail -- embedded through the tip (i.e. white part that gets cut off) to the cuticle -- take leatherman, extract staple, mom signs refusal and promptly trims fingernails. ..... :shock:
  11. Standardizing education requirements is a priority for EMS as a whole. This way there will be a standard of training that every EMS provider is taught anywhere they may be trained. By making this adjustment to a standard, I think that the National Scope of Practice may actually become a reality in my EMS lifetime. There should be no reason that an EMT-Basic from the east coast should have any different skill competency than an EMT-Basic from the west coast. This same reasoning also applies to Intermediates and Paramedics. I do not want to see a bunch of "cook book" pre-hospital medicine being practiced throughout the country, but rather a bunch of really solid fundamental skill sets established and practiced by every EMS provider in the country. Establishing a standard will also require that EMS becomes independant of other Federal oversight systems -- we all gripe and complain that we are not all fire service or hospital services and hopefully the Federal Government will realize this and make us a separate division of Health and Human Services.
  12. ok -- this is an interesting thread. I am wondering how many of you all worked with a similiar system that changed over to a "set" schedule, and how was that done to make that transition? I am currently the only full time paramedic in a relatively small service. I have been trying like heck to get our director to place me into a set schedule for the last 8 months and the only slot I can guarantee is Friday overnights (not that I am complaining about Friday over nights -- I really don't mind.) I am just looking for further suggestions on how to go about getting what I want/need -- any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, P40
  13. I have a back up question on this topic and it fits very well here. For those of you who are working with the system in question, are the full time employees guaranteed 40 hours minimum?
  14. OK -- I happen to be in a situation that I do not have a "set" schedule currently (for the last 6 months). I have been the only full time paramedic at my service during this time period. I have been relatively flexible about this as we rebuild our paramedic staffing levels to meet the services demand. I have had several sit down meetings with management regarding this issue and we have worked to get me into a psuedo schedule until next month when I have explained that I need steady schedules -- I have guaranteed # of hours, but not necessarily set hours right now. Although this has been a source of stress for me, I enjoy working for my employer and we have come to an understanding with the schedule. So I am waiting to see what September brings me -- should be a mostly set schedule. Other things that are going to help this out is the addition of more full time staff here. P40
  15. mmmm....only 3 wishes, and let me guess, no wishing for more wishes..... 1.) An educational standard for all EMS training. No more of this, well, I just finished my EMT and now I am in Paramedic school. Make the educators responsible for what they are putting out. 2.) A recognition of EMS as a PROFESSION, not something that bucket heads do because they have to. Recognition for those of us who pay the bills through EMS pay (of course, once it is recognized as a profession, the money will have to increase) 3.) National funding for EMS on a par with Fire and Police. Let us get hold of some of that homeland security money that everyone else has blown on things they will never use. I'm sure we could find some really usefully expensive things out there to equip our ambulances with.
  16. The main system I work for has a 12 hour (0600-1800) full time basic, a 16 hour medic (0600-2200) in station Monday - Thursday, Friday - Sunday Medic 24 hours. After 1800 all the BLS is on call, paid $2.00/hr + ??$15/call during call time. The ALS is on call 2200-0600 Monday - Thursday, (full time paid at 1 1/2 for 2 hour minimum per call on call). Daytime calls are paid @ $25.00/call for 2nd call for the on-call employees and OT if any of the full time employees respond. This system works very well at night when we usually have 2-3 BLS scheduled with the ALS, but we have a lack of personnel during the day making 2nd calls during the day hit or miss. One of the other services I work for has a staffed intercept ALS truck 24/7 that will cover ambulance calls in town if there are no EMT's on call, M - F primary ambulance is covered with 1 BLS full time 8 hours and 1 on-call BLS 8 hrs, after that it is all on-call BLS/ALS -- system works ok, the ALS truck covers alot of the weekend calls, but not a problem, that's what we are there for.
  17. So everyone seems to be stuck on the inaccuracies of pre-hospital medicine as portrayed on television, we are all ok with being portrayed as providers with gambling addictions? I hope this is not true. How many of us work for a private ambulance service that will allow you to wear anything other than the company issued/approved uniform? Anyone else notice that the main character guy was the only one out of uniform? Irritating. I thought the show left alot to be desired. Unfortunately, this is a show about paramedics -- our job is not really that glorious (at least not in a television show setting) and does not make for great drama. One thing I found to be excessively accurate and funny (in that sick and twisted EMS way) was when the FNG cut into the down jacket and had the filling EVERYWHERE! .....at least until the next scene.
  18. it has already been mentioned that Some Dude and That Guy are responsible for assaults but...... Beware of The Other Guy, Those 2 Guys and The 2 Guys (yes, different from "Those 2 Guys") for they are inherently responsible for forced teenage drinking!
  19. Left? Maybe that's what I've been doing wrong all these years, I thought they were supposed to pull to the right...... Why is it that when you send the FF or LEO to get the largest piece of equipment, with detailed instruction as to where this piece of equipment is, they end up searching through the entire ambulance to find it and end up finding EXACTLY where you told them it was?
  20. temsp40

    Growing up

    Airwolf? Bueller? Bueller? The WWF cartoon? Davy and Goliath? Life before MTV? The Banana Splits? Grape Ape? Tranzor Z and Aphrodite A? The Thundercats? YO! Adrianne! Poltergeist? (Run towards the light!) Squish the Fish (all you New Englanders will remember that one.) The Muppets The Electric Company 3-2-1 Contact Dr. Who (the original on PBS) Battlestar Galactica (the orginal) Tribbles :evil: Dang it, I'm old!
  21. AMR -- the great stepping stone of EMS. I used to work for AMR and it was easy to get hired when I got hired -- one of the new start-ups had recruited all the old employees that had little to no loyalty. I then proceeded to work in the great state of Worcester for 5 years. THEN I became a paramedic and had a job offering at the service I currently work for full time and attempted to stay there per diem, but it seems that even though the scheduler, the station supervisors and even the field supervisors didn't like the fact that I was leaving full time, they accepted it. I go a letter from HR the day before my last scheduled full time shift accepting my request for transfer to per diem as my letter of resignation. :? I do keep in touch with several of the people I used to work with (I even work with a few of them at our per diem "other" jobs) and AMR Northeast appears to be in a unique state currently. They have decertified the IAEP as there union (no great loss in my opinion -- but that's another subject) and begun talks with NEMSA. I still am on the IAEP's mailing list and I get their silly monthly newsletter......great fire starter! All I have to say is good luck, don't stress and keep looking, AMR is not the only service in MA -- look around, there are several other private companies (EasCare, Quality Ambulance, Patriot, Trinity, Pathways) out there to be hired by, and several of them are offering more money than AMR to start, they also may be hiring quicker than AMR.
  22. 19% Dixie. Wow! You are a Duke of Yankeedom! No kiddin'......
  23. You are a Black Coffee At your best, you are: low maintenance, friendly, and adaptable At your worst, you are: cheap and angsty You drink coffee when: you can get your hands on it Your caffeine addiction level: high
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