JCicco345

The best advice is to have a thick skin. It's part of what comes with being a newbie especially if you didn't work for the service before as a basic. Just ignore things that other you and focus on what you want to do, being a medic. Your ride time probably won't be as bad as your thinking, just go in there with the attitude that you are there to learn as much as you can. I'm currently doing my ride time and I love it, I've only been a basic for about 3 years, I was only a basic for a year and a half when I started medic school. Just enjoy the learning part of everything and ignore the idiots. Good luck.

If you read the entire article it is pretty clear that he ID'd the victim. Since people who read it were able to go to her door. So that means he deserves to get fired, without any question. I work for the evil empire and while they do stupid things pretty much all the time this was definitely warranted in my opinion.

With this patient you do not want to tilt their head back, trauma patients require the jaw thrust instead of the head tilt. I'm guessing you were taught this at some point. Anyways have someone take c-spine and then extricate the patient out of the car and on to the ground. Have the person at the head control c-spine and open the airway, if the patient is pulseless then start cpr, if you don't have a face mask or anything similiar and EMS is that close then just do compressions @ 100/minute until EMS arrives.

My basic class was suppose to be 800 or so, but it ended up being free because they never cashed the check. Plus then I took a job with them and got $1,000 sign on for going through their academy, so that worked well. Medic school cost about 7,000 for tuition through a college plus the cost of books, uniforms, travel to school and clinicals. But it will be worth it when I pass the test.

At my company we are just lucky if they don't screw up the paychecks. They have some time of above and beyond award but there is no real reason behind it being given out. You have to submit people for it, or a supervisor has to put you in for 1 but I've rarely seen that and it isn't for job performance, it is for random things. I think they should just forget the whole award thing and put the money into something useful maybe adequate equipment, pay raises, trucks that don't have over 200-300,000 miles on them. But what can you ask for a company just in it for the money.

As was mentioned above it is sinus tach with a LBBB. Any treatment to this patient would be strictly related to signs and symptoms as opposed to the rhythm. Probably just start a line and give some fluid.

As was mentioned above it is sinus tach with a LBBB. Any treatment to this patient would be strictly related to signs and symptoms as opposed to the rhythm. Probably just start a line and give some fluid.

Transfers can be fun. You can make time to grab lunch, and everything runs on a schedule compared to the 911 shifts. Again it depends on the company you are looking at and what contracts they have as to whether you will be doing 911 back up for cities and towns. With inter-facility transfers you will still get some emergency work, nursing homes call privates a lot of times for emergencies around here, also patients occasionally deteriorate en route. Also remember do NOT get into this business to light it up, every time you turn on the lights is dangerous. Other drivers act stupid, people that just want to drive with the lights and sirens act stupid, and it results in bad things. Use this job to learn as much as you can and to help people, if you want to drive fast with lights and sirens become a cop.

This might be a stupid question, but why do you guys have unmarked EMS vehicles ??? You hide the lightbar, then put it on top of the unit for calls ?? I don't see any point in that at all. Undercover EMS ? I can see it for POV's but not service owned vehicles.

I think it is good the way you are sitting back and looking at both options and the positives of each. I wanted to get right into the 911 work when I started but I ended up doing about 8 months of transfers before doing primary 911. You are right with the positives of each, and reading the paperwork, history, medications, and having that one on one patient experience are all great, and does provide a solid learning experience. But the 911 work would be a better choice in my opinion especially if you are looking to become a paramedic. You can still look at medication list and history and interview the patient to get that knowledge and in addition you get the 911 experience and doing emergency calls. The best way to learn on emergencies is to critique the calls after you do them, and to run the calls by more experienced providers and see if they have any advice. Good luck in whatever you deicide, I hope you enjoy the experience.

That is a definitely something good to remember. I think that it is smart of companies to use myspace and websites of the like, to screen their potential employees. Its a quick way to check out the real person, granted not everyone is probably 100 percent honest on those sites, but if you find something like they did on the people from the above story it is a good catch. It also gives the job to the more qualified person and prevents companies from hiring idiots. Hmm i know a few places that probably should have done a little more of in depth backrounds of their employees prior to hiring.

Also if you want to comment on someone elses writing, atleast look at your own writing first. 'lol' is a term used by little kids in chat rooms, although by looking at the age in your profile it seems to fit. Side note: This thread is going nowhere quick.

Lets see I carry: 2 pens rite in the rain notepad mini copy of protocols '07 drug guide stethoscope (usually in the truck) shears (or rescue hook, depends on which I grab in the morning) cell phone wallet (cash, debit card, cards) 2 pairs of magnum sized gloves (large) I also have a bag in the truck that has a gerber tool, mini mag, some other radnom things. It comes in handy sometimes but it's not stuff i'd carry on me.

www.needlights.com is a decent site for lights. dahlio, he asked a simple question and wanted a simple anwser, why did you feel the need to rant ? If you didn't want to anwser the question why not just ignore the thread ? It's annoying on here when people ask a simple question and then everyone goes into a stupid rant. Maybe his job requires having lights, and he doesn't seem to be over doing it, he said he just wants something cheap and bright.

There are many white pills that they could've crushed up and ingested/snorted to get a high. Kids are smart like that, ketamine does seem to be a possiblity, altough it usually has amnesic effects, and these kids seem to know whats going on. But how come these guys told them not to snort it, was it because they didnt want to share, or because it was something that you shouldn't ingest, like anthrax or something. My guess would be just stupid kids trying to get high with crushed pills, also how long was there period of unconsciousness and why weren't they intubated with a GCS of 3, or atleast give o2, ventilations.

Okay so it's not a construction worker, but I still think it's pretty funny.

I wonder if that is where they got the idea for Brokeback ?

"an Air Stewardess" Description Score Salary 4/10 Education 7/10 Job Satisfaction 9/10 Community Contribution 7/10 Pulling Power 8/10 Uniform 8/10 Total 43/60

There is a diffrence between medications that you can admisiter and medications that you can asisst with. If you can administer it then you should be carrying it, if it is a medication that you can assist with there is no reason to carry it. Since in order to be able to administer it, it has to be the patients own medication. As for the saline solution, i'm guessing that is for irrigation and such, which that is fine to carry, but we carry sterile water for irrigation. Ammonia inhalants are carried by some, not carried by others, they are really not used much either way. Burn gels, antibiotic creams, medicated swabs that is all just extra stuff, no real reason to carry it. Who supplies your trucks, they are the ones that should be approving what you are carrying. Also as previously mentioned your medical director should have a say in it too.

Fiznat, i'm guessing you are giving the NTG for the pulmonary edema correct ??? How much does the NTG usually help with pulmonary edema ? Overactive, can we get some more info on the breathing, how labored was it, what was her respiratory rate and were there any o2 SATs from before your arrival ?

People who steal are stupid. People who steal from their job should be shot. I don't know about where he was from, but around here if you need an inhaler and don't have insurance or whatever your problem is, there are usually certain people you can ask, whether they are supervisor or doctors at hospitals who will get you a few. If not just buy them, it's not worth being caught and losing your career.

I agree with dust and former about documenting your actual assessment instead of using numbers. If you have paperwork like ours you have a box for the cao stuff, so if you need to put a number in their, make sure you write out your actual mental status assessment in your narrative. For the patient you described i would write exactly what you did. As for the number, if its needed, use the 4 questions for person, place, time, event. The only problem is with a patient like you described where they are presenting with stroke like symptoms its hard to tell because the garbled speech isn't necessarily a wrong answer. They usually know what they want to say but just can't express it. Personally in the cao box, i just put "see narrative" across it and then document something like, patient responded to all questions with garbled and incoherent speech. Hope that helps.

Becksdad, I like where you went with this, I'm in full agreement with the get out and to the hospital as quick as you can. That's pretty much how the call went for us. By the time we had stairchaired the patient out to the ambulance, we started transport and got ALS at the end of the street. He was a tough stick, so he got 2 of narcan IM and the EKG, then eventually got a line before we got to the ED. He was still non-verbal, and had no response to the narcan. We went out on another call, but by the time we got back to the ED, maybe 30 minutes, he was intubated and they were waiting on an ICU bed. Turns out he did have a GI bleed, also a PH of 7.14, a little acidosis.

D-stick = 164 HR = 140 strong and regular Pupils = smaller than normal but not pinpoint Resps = 24 B/p = 110/p

ALS requested with a 3 minute ETA, the hospital is about 4 or so minutes away. Also one of the FFs says hes run across this indivudual before and hes a known herion addict.