Dustdevil

I am a reasonable man. I will delegate that authority to my personal goon squad.

Not only should it be mandatory, but the government should get involved by providing further incentive. Classes should be free. And students should be able to deduct the value of a day's salary from their taxes, even if they attend on a day off. And those who fail to recertify each year should be subject to on-the-spot cardioversion if caught.

That's very true. And you can forget OSHA ever standing behind you or protecting you. It won't happen. You're better off playing the ADA card. They will actually back that up.

All such laws have special circumstance waivers written into them. No big deal. Any significant increase in public CPR education benefits not only society at large, but us in particular. Somebody has got to teach all those classes! I know some medics making a pretty good living teaching CPR and other safety-oriented classes.

Just to clarify, the medical director I was referring to didn't ask us not to call because he didn't trust us. Quite the contrary. He asked us not to call because he trusted us and expected us to make our own decisions regarding patient care, no matter what the situation might be.

Dude, I had a doctor don gloves just to do a ROM exam of my knee last week! :?

Isn't BCLS required for high school graduation in Texas? I could be wrong. I just know that I have taught a LOT of HS CPR classes that the teachers said was "required." I like the DL idea. After all, modern EMS' roots are in the DOT-NHTSA. You'd think that they might take some interest in pushing something like that through to the states. At the very least, CPR should be an option to get deferred adjudication on a traffic ticket. "Defensive Driving" has become such a worthless joke. A lot of people would choose CPR over DD.

What a concept, eh? Here's the "options" my favourite medical director gave us: 1. Do whatever you think the patient needs. 2. Don't call me until you have done it and are enroute to the ER.

I recently found that same photo while searching the net. I know a girl who is obsessed with Mark Harmon, but is too young to have ever seen him in anything before NCIS, so I went specifically looking for 240R pics. It was definitely a campy show. But it did give me some really good ideas. For years I kept praying that television producers would finally discover that there was EMS and fire service outside of California. Of course, one must be careful what one wishes for. When they finally found their way out of Los Angeles, they merely skipped over the entire country to go to NY, where the world is equally as unrealistic as California.

So are you just looking to get outta Dodge, or can you not get in with Grady?

What kind of tourniquets are y'all using now?

Fort Worth and Austin Texas both have high-volume 911 services which are separate from fire and utilize basics. So does New Orleans, as well as almost all of Louisiana, although Louisiana seems to consistently stay about a decade behind the rest of the EMS world technologically speaking. Las Vegas is private service 911. A lot of Northern California is private 911. Isn't Atlanta private or hospital based EMS? Do they not hire basics?

Ahh... the video arcade craze! It was almost as bad as the drug craze. Otherwise docile teenagers turned into thieves, burglars, and even robbers just to get enough coinage for their next fix. It was truly disturbing. I remember the mid 80's being a bonanza for coin collectors. Rare and long out of circulation coins became commonplace in circulation as kids stole their parents' coin collections and took them to the corner arcade to play video games. I knew people who opened arcades strictly for the opportunity to sort through all the coins to find the rare collectables.

I actually like a lot of what they do. Their process is nothing if not thorough! Three months as a third-man? Now THAT is thorough! And 8 hour shifts rock. Yeah, it kinda sucks that you can't take one shift off and have a five-day vacation, but short shifts go a long way in preventing -- or at least delaying -- burnout, so they are better for the career. By living "in the city" do you mean they have to actually live within Boston city limits, or could you live in a suburb like Cambridge or Brookline? I like the area, but man... I just can't see living any sort of decent lifestyle there on less than $48k/yr.

:shock: Holy crap! Whoever your billing manager is should either: 1. Write a book 2. Go on the lecture circuit 3. Send out resumes, because he/she could probably get hired anywhere! Seriously. No BS! Is that all direct collections, or does that include like the city or county paying for anything not collected after a certain amount of time?

Space is nice, but not absolutely necessary. I worked for many years in type IIs and even low-top vans, and was never so cramped that I could not function. I actually got along pretty well in Suburbans and hearses for the first few years of my career. We've simply become spoiled. I think the Sprinters can fill a very useful niche. Lots of systems, both urban and rural, prefer a type II for various reasons, mostly being narrow streets, alleys, and country roads in their territories that would restrict the movement of a box. For those agencies, the Sprinter offers a similar slender platform on a more reliable chassis and powerplant, with a modest increase in room. Nothing wrong with that.

Wow, that's pretty weird. I know systems who hire medics into EMT slots, where they will always be scheduled as an EMT with a "senior medic." But I have never heard of one who actually prohibited those junior medics from utilizing their skills. I find it incredibly hard to believe that any progressive and intelligently designed system would allow their people's skills to deteriorate over a 2 to 4 year period, and then put them into a senior medic slot. That's just beyond moronic. It is a disservice not just to their personnel, but to the citizens they are paid to serve. They better be paying $80k a year for an EMT, because between the NE cost of living and being crapped on by your own agency, that's about what it would take to get any medic with a brain and self-esteem to work there. Not that there is any shortage of agencies who crap on their medics. :?

I doubt it is that complicated. Men aren't complicated creatures. It is more than likely as simple as him not liking the idea of coming home to a dark, empty house with no dinner on the table. You're asking him to change his lifestyle for your temporary craving for trauma. That isn't the lifestyle he signed on to when he said, "I do." Men like stability. I can't blame him for not being particularly excited about it. And no amount of convincing him what a noble calling it is is going to make him happier about it. Rid's right. You need professional counseling for this. Otherwise the resentment is going to grow on both sides and you're doomed.

Okay, so like... help me understand this hiring system. If you are already a medic, you still work an EMT slot until promoted. I get that much. It's a good plan, so long as you have enough medics to pull it off. My question is, if you are a medic working an EMT slot, do they not allow you to use ALS skills? Or are you simply paid and scheduled as a basic, with another medic being senior partner, but you can still practice ALS skills?

Not for very long, haha! That was THE WORST show ever! It was so ridiculous that it was almost a parody of the fire service. Andrew Stevens ruins anything he is in. For some bizarre reason, Hollywood seemed absolutely determined to make him a major star for about ten years. Thank God they finally gave up! At least we got to see Morgan Fairchild nekkid in that one movie!

Oooh! Nice list! I don't remember "The Lieutenant," but the others were favourites of mine. I still see "Combat!" on late night television, but I havent't seen the others in years. Although, "Quantum Leap" was very much like "Time Tunnel."

Hehe... my uncle is blind and has two glass eyes. I always wondered what some nurse or medic would think if they didn't know and tried to examine him! Those things look really real! I guess the funniest thing that ever happened to me was when I was working hospital-based EMS. We wore scrub suits, even in the field. I got to the scene of an MVA on the highway one evening. As I started walking towards the patient, I tried to clip the really heavy-ass Motorola HT over the waistband of my scrub pants. My pants immediately dropped to my ankles, and I tripped and fell in the middle of the highway. :shock: Luckily it was night time, and not broad daylight with half the town watching!

It's a GAU-2B/A 7.62mm (.308) belt fed, air cooled, six barrell electric minigun. The rate of fire is 6000 rounds per minute, but you can't actually hold the trigger down for a full minute or the barrells will melt, haha. There are 2 or 3 of them on Air Force SAR and Special Ops helicopters. Good times! You can see one sticking out the side window of my helicopter at this pic in my gallery: http://www.emtcity.com/phpBB2/album_pic.php?pic_id=547 They are made by General Electric, which resulted in this popular poster back during the war:

When the scientist who invented Hymie told Maxwell Smart his name was Hymie, Smart said, "Hymie?!?" The scientist replied indignantly, "My father's name was Hymie!" Later, when Hymie introduced himself to the Chief, the Chief said, Hymie?!?" Hymie replied, "My father's name was Hymie!" Then later when Hymie met a KAOS agent, the agent said, "Hymie?!?" And Smart replied, "His father's name was Hymie!" Hymie took everything literally. Remember when Hymie and Smart were leaving a room and Smart told him to "kill the light" and Hymie pulled out a silenced pistol and shot the light out?

In the good ol' days, I got to take one of these bad boys to work everyday!