JCicco345

I worked full time to pay for my regular bills, and then a part time job to pay for school. Its hard to work all the schedules around each other but you'll figure it out after a few weeks, good luck with medic school. If you like ems you will love going through medic school, you learn a ton and realize how much you really didn't know before.

OEMS has the list of all their accredited courses. I went to Massbay, it's a good program, college credits, great clinical sites and ride time. Our program director left right after our class finished and i don't know the new guy too well, but the practical instructors are awesome. I wouldn't do northeastern, everyone seems to look at them but they charge about $17,000, compared to massbays $7000. As for MassBay they have a fulltime class starting in Sept, it's mon-thurs i believe for 9 months, or there is the part time class starting in Jan, it is tuesday and thursday nights until november and then its 3 nights a week for clinicals until april. I did the part time class because i was still working full time and had a part time job to pay for the school, I loved the class though. I am going to be a firemonkey eventually, but I am keeping my job on the ambulance. My initial reason for getting my EMT was to get a fire job. I ended up falling in love with EMS and i will never give it up. I wouldn't go through the last year and a half to get my medic to go sit in a fire house somewhere and do nothing with it. I am excited about being a medic.

I've offically passed the written portion of the NREMT-P exam. I'm taking the practical in June, coming up quick. Excited to be done with everything, so I can upgrade and start working as a medic. But I live in lovely massachusetts so i still have the state written and practical, should be done with everythig by mid-july. Such a long process.

I disagree with was Dust said here, she would be a patient about her being a non-patient. Maybe some systems are diffrent but even in school we've had the debate about what constitutes a patient. If you were called to the scene to evaluate someone, wouldn't that make them a patient. Granted the trooper didn't need to call the ambulance but once he did that makes her a patient. Its a gray area though, if a passer-by calls 911 for the accident, on your arrival all parties are ambulatory and denying injuries, there is minor damage, ect. Do you obtain refusals, in our system we do, but i don't think we should need to. However if police or fire on scene request for the eval then that makes the person a patient. Or if you arrive on scene and they do complain about something, IE neck or back.

Either get the parents on the phone and have someone translate, contact medical control and explain the situation to the doc. Or you are stuck transporting and you can thank the cop. Minors cannot refuse and the brother has no right to refuse on her behalf, she is defined as a patient because you were sent there to evaluate her. Hospitals around here are close enough I just transport people in these situations because it is the quickest option, unless they vehemently refuse then i'll make 1 phone call to the parents and if that doesn't work they get a ride.

I don't know about the b/l 14's, vitals seem pretty stable. BUt i'm just a student.

I'd go with sz. Can't be a syncopal, syncopals are short loc, this was extended.

I'm guessing you cannot drink D50, since if it infiltrates that is bad, causes tissue necrosis. So if it is above 40 and they are conscious and have patent airway give them the oral glucose.

First off nothing that you had in your car would've done any good on 9/11. Unless you have some SAMs hidden in your trunk. So you don't even want to be a career EMT, so why are you going to go around stopping at car accidents with your personal ambulance, i mean car. Do you just want people to see you out there working, you want to be a hero huh ? Well this is the wrong line of work to be a hero, go to school and become a federal agent then you can go around being a hero. Just make sure you have plenty of ammo in your trunk, you never know what you might come across.

I don't believe there are 50 plus. I'd agree more with the 4 levels. Granted you can branch into critical care and or other specialties but those are really the only 4 levels of emergency responders. Although as previously mentioned some states use diffrent titles, but I think it still comes out to four levels.

Don't forget all the flashing red lights, a big bumper sticker along the line of emts save paramedics. Don't forget the trauma cape and complete kit including the trauma hatchet. See if you can find a cheap set of jaws somewhere, check ebay. Make sure it is a big response bag so if you get a school bus accident you are good to go. Good luck.

Congrats !!!!!!!

I think being "operational" at 11 years old seems pretty ridiculous. I'd be pissed if I was hurt at an event and 11 year olds were coming over to help me. I've heard of places starting junior explorers and the like at 16, but 10 and 11. :roll: Seems a little strange to me. Anyways I dont do the vol ems thing, in the area i live it is all paid services and paid fire/ems.

WOW. Sounds like you have some excellent providers.

As for the analgesia question, use the search function there was a recent thread about this subject. It was titled do you feel you can adequately control pain.

Thanks. I would never go to Boston EMS. I spend too much effort in medic school to go to Boston EMS and work as a basic for the next 3 years or more. I am currently trying to find a good ALS system to work in, one that is busy enough to keep me interested, also progressive and has the opportunity to learn a lot. But I imagine that is what everyone looks for.

That is awesome. Old people can be funny.

This started out with someone simply asking a question about ALS intercepts. We've gone over this a hundred times on this board and we never get anywhere with this argument. Admin needs to lock this thread up, and this issue needs to stop being debated. I think everyone on the city who wanted to throw their opinion in on this subject has had ample opportunity. This site is great for learning, getting answer to questions, and chatting with fellow ems workers. Look at all the people on the city, it is quite diverse, we have people that are in EMT school, all the way up to medics with 30 plus years on the street. We have nurses and doctors too. (lucky us :roll: ) Just kidding. We need to keep focused on what the city was created for. Debates have a place, as long as the subject matter is something worth debating. The emt vs medic thing has gotten old, it's starting to catch up to dust. If you feel the need to keep debating this subject then go to www.emts-vs-paramedics.com. Thank you and have a good night.

SO how about them red sox ?

Finally done with my medic class. Tomorrow morning I get the pleasure of going in and turning in all my ride time paperwork and PCRs. Its been a long year and a half and a ton of work but now comes the fun stuff. The practical exam is the first week of June, so I should be eligible for the written early July. I can't wait to start working as a medic. The classroom portion was tough but it was a great experience and I got a lot out of it. The hospital clinical rotations were great I learned a lot and managed to have a great time doing it, it was also nice to get to practice some of the skills. I just finished ride time last week, we went to Tulsa,OK for 2 weeks and that was an awesome experience, the preceptors were great and loved to teach. I managed to learn a lot and get all my points within the first few shifts. A couple more months of studying to get ready for these certification exams then it's time to start working.

I agree with Dust 100% on this one. I have to be honest though. After just finishing my year and a half medic class, which I went into with a year and a half of experience as a basic, when I started and I though I knew a lot about medical and trauma calls and I thought I knew what I was doing but actually going through the medic program you quickly learn how much you don't know. It's not a bad thing, education is the biggest downfall of modern ems. Even medic school is pretty basic when it gets right down to it, but its something to start a career off with but you still need the con-ed classes and you still need to study and read articles and learn as much as you can. But to think as a basic you can save the world is ridiculous. In EMT school the treatment for every call, that is remotely emergent, is call ALS and place the patient on high flow oxygen. Not much of a treatment. Again this isn't meant to demean BLS, I still work BLS, but it is just that basic life support, immediate stabilization until the patient can receieve a higher level of care. BLS is great for first response, but ALS should be the standard of care.

That is up to the service in which you are applying too. Some places will hire you on and put you through the orientation if you are waiting to become certified other services make you wait until you have recieved the certification. So find the service(s) you are interested in applying with and contact them. Good luck.

A medic on every ambulance brings up a good point. In my area there are no trucks that are staffed with a medic and a basic, all trucks are either 2 basics or 2 medics. Which seem stupid considering if they split all the crews it would double the number of ALS trucks available. Why do you need to medics on the same truck ? Do you really need a medic to drive ? I can see that occasionally having a second medic might be slightly benificial. You have a really sick patient or you aren't 100 % sure of the diagnosis or the treatment plan and you want someone to bounce the idea off of. But I don't feel that it is worth it to waste having a second medic on the truck for those rare occasions. ALS should be the standard of emergency care. As for the initial post, the system I work in we only request medics when it's a call that requires immediate ALS interventions en route to the hospital. For the most part we are never more than 5-10 minutes from the hospitals so it is usually quicker to just take the patient to the definitive care.

Well I think your biggest problem then would be a lack of high level or care at the event and lack of adequate staffing. I understand what you are saying, it would be nice to help with the pain, but that involves starting an IV, and if you aren't able to take a bp you shouldn't be giving pain meds in the first place. I think you should worry more about getting an ambulance that can transport the patient to definitive care and less about being able to administer medications. Also why can you not take a bp ? That seems stupid. For the original post, our ALS trucks carry morphine for pain management. We also have valium and versed for sedation, not for pain though. Our standing orders for morphine is 1-3 mg q 5 prn to max of 10 mg, or 0.1 mg/kg to a max of 10 mg. Then its medical control for higher doses.

In the original post the patient was said to be pulseless and apenic.