FireMedic65

I was chillin at the fire house earlier and my captain asks me for help with getting medical equipment for our squad truck. Anyway, he was asking about a pulse ox that reads CO, yes CO (carbon monoxide). He said a nurse said it would be a good idea and all that. Is this a new device? From what I remember, the way a pulse ox works is by reading the affinity of o2 attached to the hemoglobin by using light shining into the blood and doing something fancy that gives a reading based on the color of the blood. Also, C0 attaches to the hemoglobin a lot easier than o2 does; thus giving you a false positive in the reading. With that in mind, did he hear what the nurse said improperly? Is there a new device that will detect C0? Information please I can't find anything on the interweb that is useful.

Glad to see you are alive and well. Welcome back bud.

IF the person is a medic student and cleared by their clinical director to perform the skill... then yes. Observation is closely monitored and still may not be allowed to perform. If a student cannot tell me why they are doing something, they will not be allowed to do it. If they try to jump right in for the ALS stuff and skip over BLS just because "they can use it", they will not be allowed to perform the skill. Maturity and knowledge base is a big thing for me on the ambulance... I want the student to know what they are doing before they are allowed to do anything. If they do not know, I will tell them to study it and come back to me when they do know it. Liability is a big issue. If that person screws up, it is MY ass. I will not cover for them and say "Yeah I did it." I will also not allow a person to perform anything out of their scope, even if they are a student. Just because they are a medic student, does not give them the ability to pop a chest. Practicing skills outside your scope of practice is illegal. If you are a paramedic and you happen to be volunteering/working on a BLS ambulance and then meet up with an ALS... you still CANNOT perform ALS skills. Yes, you are a paramedic, but you are not "working" as one at that moment and therefor not covered under that scope of practice.

But I was getting so good!

A good portion of my right hand screen is cutoff...

States the require testing for NR and not testing for a "state" exam generally all work the same. The NR test IS your state licensing exam. Once you pass NR you will be given state credentials. If you do not take and pass NR, you do not any any credentials. So, regardless of what state you go to... you will not qualify for reciprocity because you are not certified.

Through out most of EMT-B school I used a super cheap sprauge. I think it was lie $12. I do not recommend using these unless for IN CLASS. Sure, they aren't terrible, but with the dualtubes... movement messes up what you are hearing. I upgraded to an ADC Adscope.. I don't recall the model, 601 looks like the same according to a quick image search on google. I liked it. Heard fairly well, but the ear pieces got to be a bit painful after awhile. So , unless you change them you will probably be uncomfortable as well. During medic school a friend gave me his old master cardiology and it was fantastic. Although, I think it was "too good". When on the ambulance you could actually hear the engine running and sometimes even the road noise. I also got a cardiology III. I use this most of the time. Very comfortable and have great hearing. For shits and giggles, I got one of those gold plated scopes so I could look like Dr. Romano from ER. No, it wasn't a real one.. those are actually $300+. Mine was a cheap ripoff. It was mostly for laughs.. but it worked. So, with all of that said, I suggest something cheap and reliable. Go with the ADC and replace the earpieces. good luck!

For school? Get something cheap.

If people are afraid of getting negative posts.. they should post with better quality but then again, you can't make everyone happy. a few people got tons of negatives for pretty much no reason... anyway.. I like the idea of knowing who gives you positive rating.. but maybe not negative. it might start fights.. just saying also, maybe if elite members can get that same feature edit: broken images for the blog list on main page. member statuses not showing up on main page either

Got rid of the facebook style statusbar/chat messenger dealie? Site seems to load a lot smaller and doesn't fit to screen either.

Congratulations!

So sorry to hear about your loss.

I am not quite sure what is worse... that the lady found it THAT amusing, or that there was no obvious attempt of stopping the laughing kids from watching.

Really sorry to hear this.. it is terrible news. My sister dealt with a similar situation when she divorced her husband... he also stole stuff from me. Anyway, you were not married correct? If not... then she stole your stuff, and robbed your bank account. I would call the police. Hope things work out for you.

It may seem redundant that you have to sit through these classes but that is exactly what continuing education is. The equipment you train on is not always the same you have at work. There may be some differences in equipment and even if you know how to operate them, your company needs to cover themselves liable to assure themselves you are "trained". I had a similar situation. After medic school, while I was waiting on a better job to come up, I was still working at a factory that made mattress frames. I STILL had to sit through a few classes on using the AED, CPR, and first aid. They were instructed by people that were not healthcare workers. They were people that the company sent to get instructor cards. Your AHA may not be sufficient to their CPR because most industrial companies used Red Cross. Yea, it is the same "CPR" but it is not the same certification. Your boss was right but did a very poor job of making their point. ps... it is not always wise to insult employers on a public forum, just an fyi

smells do "stick around" I forget why, but there is a sciency answer for it.. the smell of burning flesh sticks in the nose for a long time

It all depends on the situation too though. Is it a recover? Is it an emergency? Did it happen during emergency? Did it happen prior to arrival? All of these can change the way our brain reacts to them. Walking into the situation knowing what you will come across better prepares you. It happening during treatment, you are caught off guard but usually have adrenalin pumping so you hardly notice...

The smell gets to me most of the time. Sometimes the smell isn't bad, or I am too preoccupied with what I am doing for it to bother me. I carry vicks vapor rub in my pocket. Put some under your nose on upper lip.. it helps to mask the foul smells.

That is indeed crazy. The most I can do is like 30miles, and that is sitting in the gym on a trainer with a/c! My hat goes off to these people. Especially Ian. My father had MS and it is great that he is doing this to raise funds for the research foundation.

I just wrote an essay for school about "advances in technology". Part of my argument had to do with medical devices, a vent being one of them. My main point was even though these devices take a great amount of work load off of us and "thinking" we should never fully rely on them. I explained briefly how a vent works. Relying on such devices can land us in a lot of trouble. They are not "turn on and forget". You have to constantly monitor the devices and THE PATIENT! These devices are only tools to help us get what needs to be done, done. As for this situation, it boggles my mind of how it could have happened. Don't vents have alarms and stuff that go off? What was the medic doing? Why didn't they bag the patient with a BVM? Was there no portable o2 cylinder? I can understand how the system would fail, shit happens. There are backups though, such as YOUR BASIC AIRWAY MANAGEMENT, you know... the BVM. Although, this system failed 2 times, even after it was "repaired". Maybe the repair was poor, or the problem was more complicated? Still doesn't explain why the medic didn't revert back to the basics...

haha.. good stuff

No where in the Unites States... it was just a proposal for what should be done