medicdsm

Critical thinking is something taken very seriously in my department. Granted am a a Paid on Call with a fire-based EMS service. The paramedics in my service are very willing to teach as well as demanding of the EMT-B's to learn new things. One of the most important things they try and teach us is critical thinking. After every call we run w/ one of the paramedics we are required to do an after action review with the paramedic we went on the call with as well as the Squad Officer. One major key point they hit on is the thinking. During the call if it is a BLS level the paramedic will go from primary to partner(supervisor, and advisor) allowing the basic to gain experience. During the call the paramedics take notes on the basics actions from evaluation to patient care to patient interaction. During the AAR the paramedics enlighten the basics as to any mistakes made as well as questioning the basics on what they could have done differently. The scenario then is re-enacted with station personnel so as to allow the basic to "run" the call as if they were the primary, with no ALS available so as to make the basics think on how to run the call. The basic who was actually on the call is NOT allowed to make comment during the as well as they are not allowed to participate as the BLS provider on the call. To me this is one of the best ways possible to build critical thinking skills.

The Memorial Day weekend this year our local PD had just hired a new lateral transfer. FD gets paged for a commercial fire assignment which means EMS is automatically paged as well (same service 2 pages). En Route to the call the new PD officer decides to light up and pull our engine over. He decides to ticket all 4 memebers of the engine, who are getting bunker gear on, for no seat belt. Needless to say our chief and his had a nice "heart to heart" for holding our engine up on the way to a call. Also the tickets were all thrown out.

LEAK

A few weeks ago, about 3am, we were dispatched to the local convenience store to assist PD on scene with an unknown problem. We arrive only to be told by PD that all they needed was a ladder to get on the roof so they could see how the burglar made entrance. You'd think PD would have been smart enough to tell dispatch that we were needed non-emergent. Funniest part is PD sergeant shows up in the explorer with a ladder and laughs at FD for running emergent to the call.

Mine would have to be anything about how a basic is stupid....granted we do not have the training or education of a paramedic and that is why we are called basics. Some basics i know seem to have a better grasp on a lot of stuff than some paramedics do. I am not knocking paramedics but please stop stereotyping all basics as idiots or nimrods....were not. Sometimes it is because Paramedic courses are not often available in the area other times it is because the person does not want to pass the bls level.

I'm not sure if this has been asked before, but i was curious what different certifications each respective state recognizes. In Iowa they recognize the following EMT-FR First responder EMT-PFR Police First Responder EMT-PD Police Defib EMT-A EMT-Ambulance......still recognized no new certs EMT-D EMT Defig.....still recognized no new certs EMT-B EMT-Basic EMT-I EMT Intermediate (NREMT- EMT-P EMT-Paramedic (NREMT-I) EMT-PS EMT-Paramedic Specialist (NREMT-P)

The service I volunteer with is expecting to go to a full time FD/EMS in the next 5 years so they have hired 1 full time Chief and 1 full time Asst. Chief. The plan on going full time is fairly new so they are wanting as much time as possible to do it. I will give them credit they went out and got a Chief that has transitioned 1 VFD into full time. One of the perks of Volunteering with the service is that you are on the top of the list to become full time if you so choose.

At the service i volly with we are not allowed to respond to medical calls from 6am to 6pm monday-friday because the city pays a private service to cover these hours.The city says this is because most people who volly work in those hours. Most other members of my volly squad i have talked to about this work early evening or overnights as i do and would like to be able to respond during daytime hours. I was wondering really how many other people who volunteer with either a VAC or VFD have to deal with a situation similar to this.