AnthonyM83

I'd like to think this place started it all, though. The idea of EMS people coming to a place to not only bond, but also to mentor to provide advice from an academic perspective, instead of the ricky rescue perspective. It was the #1 largest influence in my EMS career, as it set up my foundation.

Was just going through my Amazon EMS Wishlist and realized I had some real old books there with descriptions from a bunch of you guys. I think I must've asked for advice when prepping for medic school (or maybe I just kept a running list form the threads). Some from dusty, ridryder, firemedic1, outbach, and sjslennon, too. Funny, most of them I couldn't afford to buy the and forgot them, but came around to re-finding and buying a lot of them on my own years later.

Man, Dust, AK, Ruff, the Docs, VentRT (what happened to him/her), and some others really left an impression on me as a new EMT in EMS working in a really crappy system. Gave me the mindset of not letting my surroundings dictate my level of knowledge or patient care. I owe a lot to this forum...

Was cleaning out my mailbox and saw a notification for this thread... Good to see some familiar faces...

Could you be more specific? "What you are getting is actually the MAP"? The MAP is usually a single number, and when you take a blood pressure it gives two numbers...which is the MAP Also, there should be a phone number on the device with a 24-hour support line that can lead you through working any cardiac arrests or critical situations with these patients. They're your best bet!

Welcome from Los Angeles. The ambulance driver's cert takes like a day. Look up some study guides online. Then start applying right away!

Croaker, I gotcha now. Yeah, definitely a trend away from GCS, from good reason... I do like the comment Busy made, though. When giving a report, either EMTs to arriving ALS, or ALS to arriving EMTs that are going to be helping us move them, it paints a better pictures saying, "He's like a 3-4-6" right now. After awhile, it gets pretty easy to use. Just gotta practice calculating it in your head without looking at the cheat sheet... it gets easier with time the more you use it in conversation. Gotta get that working knowledge experience and you won't have to guestimate.

Miscusi, I think the original poster wanted a little more info/discussion on its potential for causing further injury. DocBob, I've never heard of that move, but I don't know how dangerous rolling your shoulders back to create a flatter? position would be... Like you said, it means one muscle moving another affecting another possibly affecting the neck... Whereas we full on move the neck in order to put it back into neutral in-line position, right? That's way more movement...?

Various chemical imbalances.... ammonia, potassium, sodium, glucose, metabolic, etc. Drug poisoning / overdose. Hypoxia.

I think of him often... BEorP, he has some better pics on his FB...I don't know if you're friends on there, but if not I can try looking through them when I get to my home computer tomorrow... let me know

I don't know about these Bieber? I might have missed some past conversations on this, but what pain management procedures are good for patients in a state of shock? I also don't know how we'd survive without lights/sirens in Los Angeles. For my local fire station it takes about 15+ minutes to cross some 2-block stretches... lights/sirens can cut down a transport time from 45+ minutes to under 10 minutes in a number of areas (more in some specific areas)....no speeding involved either..

I'd highly suggest ART and BART training. It's a system showing increased one year out results after cardiac arrest. Highly recommend it. http://health.ucsd.edu/medinfo/nursing/edr/education/Pages/resuscitation.aspx

Croaker could you support your claim that most agencies are going to the SMS system? I'm not refuting its value, just the claim. Also, there's been studies showing how inconsistent GCS scores are when done on the same patient by different providers. One reason might be the true exam has criteria we never hear about like patient crossing midline to localize pain. Question: what do people mean by taking the time to do a proper GCS assessment? You look at your patient, ask him a question, and ask for his arm for a BP or IV.... Or pain to see if any change. You end up doing that at least twice for all calls even if not thinking about it, no. Once at beginning and at least some other time along the way...?

Wondering how many people here have had the chance to diagnose WPW with AFib in the field ... I can see this a bit difficult to catch... Though would be the time you'd really not want to use adenosine....

Okay, finally have some downtime to write. CAP Lab was freaking awesome as usual. Unfortunately, I was a bit under the weather for this one, but still had a blast. I rummaged around in some chest cavities, found a gallstone, ran a code on the gazillion dollar simulations man, got to see some interesting broken bones, and finally found someone to discuss heart sounds with. Oh, and a badass MCI in nightclub...felt like I was in a movie. Doc, next time it should be a Zombie MCI...go in and find out who's dead and who's walking dead And how does it always happen that you one makes random connections. The Doc has some fun friends...we went out for some drinks, and let's just say there was plenty of adventuring about town! (Unfortunately the Doc needed his beauty sleep so was only able to join us for dinner.)