iamyourgod

Ok so lets take the discussion to the next logical level. Religous male employee or a female employee complains about the show you are watching. You respond, there is a tv in the bedroom or you can leave the room if you dont like what is on. How do you think that will play in front of your HR person or commissioners when you have to go to the EEOC hearing, because this person has filed a complaint. And going back to my original statement, if a commissioner or your department's chaplain walked in, would you continue to watch the r-rated movie or would you turn it off ? If there is nothing wrong with it, then you would have to answer, we would leave it running.

You do not see the coorelation between having a professional workplace part of the time, and being racist only some of the time ? You are either a professional department or you are not. Being professional half of the day doesnt count.

no offense taken at all -- i love a lively debate. So to ask another related question --- what percentage of refusals are actual REFUSALS versus medics talking the patient out of going to the hospital. As an EMS professional, do you not see anything wrong with telling a patient to go to the Doctor tomorrow, and then handing them a piece of paper to sign that more or less says "we begged you to go to the hospital, but you refused, so now if you die tonight, its not our liability ? And I am smiling big while typing all of these posts, I am not angry, but my underwear is riding my crack

Actually i am atheist. I am sorry, but right or wrong doesnt go by a clock. If something is not professional at 3pm when the school kids are touring the station, then it is not appropriate at 3am when no school kids are around. That is like saying it is ok to use the N word as long as no african-americans are around.

Have you ever explained or proven your superiority to a cockroach. I am EMSGOD, I need not explain myself to you. But you should be grateful, as I have set myself up for a huge fall, all you have to do is challenge me with logical responses to my diatribes, and i will either be proven to be or not to be your GOD ---LOL (and yes, this is tongue in cheek). So prove me to be a mortal, it shouldnt be hard.

great point (and if you havent noticed, there is a "discussion" happening). I too subscribe to your theory, and do believe that everyone in the organization should be involved in making their system the best that they can. But even if you increased your fleet by 10-30%, you would still have one of those days when the amount of ambulances you have is not enough. We have all had those days where the calls just kept coming. All I am saying is that when you are in front of that patient, you shouldnt sacrifice their care because you are down to one ALS truck, or out of trucks all together. The patients I initially listed by category, are the exact ones that medics always get in trouble for not transporting.

Really, that is interesting, nice to hear there are some professional workplaces out there. Almost every fire station in the major cities of my state have these stations as part of their cable package. Sometimes it is donated by the cable supplier, sometimes individual stations are allowed to purchase whatever cable level they want as long as they pay for it. I remember vividly walking into a station we were posted at one night with a new female rookie -- the guys were watching the show OZ on HBO, and the F word was dropped about every 40 seconds, and there was a graphic homo rape scene. I have never been so embarassed in all my life === and what was worse, was that no one saw anything wrong with it, so we just went back to the truck. This scenario plays out every night in a fire station somewhere.

I am not angry, but I am an EMS GOD, so my tone may sound condescending --LOL ---- I love the phrase "Responsibility to Educate", funny though, it is only used when it gets an EMT/Medic out of transporting a patient.

My background, which has nothing to do with the subject, is 24 years in EMS -- 22 as a paramedic, working in 911, urban, rural, hospital, critical care, and convalescent services. Right is right, and wrong is wrong. I probably shouldnt have used the term "porn" but instead said anything "R rated or worse". As you are aware, after about 10pm, you basically have soft porn playing on HBO and Skinimax. Nude bodies and foul language have no place in a professional workplace. I know many will be offended by my post, but when you ask them to let their teenage daughter come over and sit with the guys on the couch to watch their favorite late night show, the opinion then changes. I would love to see a "justification" for allowing such shows to be shown in a public/professional workplace.

well your interview date has passed, but in case another ems professional has the same question; most employers have moved away from yes and no questions, and moved towards questions that require you to prove your views or competence on an issue. Instead of "have you ever run 911 calls ?" you might hear, "tell me about the most critical 911 call you have ever run". Instead of "do you do well with difficult coworkers?", you might hear "tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult coworker and how you resolved the problem?". The best advice is to think about the questions you pray to god that they do not ask, and then come up with the best positive answer you can come up with.

Good ideas, but i would have to argue a little about the money. I used to believe money wasnt a motivator, until my company decided to be top-payor in our region. We start paramedics at $54k/year, which allows us to get rid of the malcontents immediately because we have a long list of applicants. Having the best equipment in our region doesnt hurt either - Hydraulic stretchers, computers, GPS, ventilators and IV pumps on all trucks. You will have to pry my cold dead hands off this truck before i leave.

As long as we continue to allow this porn in the workplace, we can never claim to be professionals. You dont find porn playing in the lobby at IBM or any other professional workplace. Imagine your teenage daughter going to work at wendy's, and being forced to watch porn on the tv set in the back -- you would be outraged. It is not only a sexual harassment issue, but it is also offensive to those who are religous. Remember the old sayig, "If you cant do it in front of your momma (when you were a teen) you shouldnt be doing it. The same is true in fire/ems, if you wouldnt watch porn in front of the county commissioners or the department's chaplain, you shouldnt be doing it. Get your porn at home, be professional at work.

I appreciate the feedback, but as i stated, once you start digging into solving the problem, people tend to lose focus on what is important, and that is the patient in front of them. And although the field paramedic may catch most of the abuse, it is not their problem to solve. This post was about clarifying the medic on the scene's role, which shouldnt be anything other than "what is best for the patient in front of me now". How many times have you seen someone get a refusal because it was 3am or because dinner was getting cold back at the station or in the truck, or because the patient wanted to go to a hospital that was too far away. You could make the same excuse for ER nurses having to deal with non-emergent patients in the ER. We can argue all day about whether they should be there or not, or how we can fix the "health care problem", but it is that nurse's duty to provide the best care to that patient, and not make excuses as to why he/she should be able to provide a lower standard of care.

I see so many questions with the common underlying problem, " I am on scene with this drunk, this crazy person, this system abuser, this non-emergency, this DNR" -- how can i get out of transporting them, or why should i have to tie up my ALS unit with this. The answer is that the only thing that matters is the patient in front of you. As a paramedic it is not your responsibility to plan, budget, or deploy enough ambulances to cover peak call volume. When you start leaving these patients behind so that you can get 10-8 for the real emergency, you will get yourself burned. You do not have the lab or radiological equipment necessary to rule out all possibilities of illness/injury. Do your job and take care of your patient.