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cscboulder11

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Posts posted by cscboulder11

    Vacation Spots

    in Archives

    Posted

    Colorado is a wonderful state. Lots of national parks to do day hiking, and plenty of other activities depending on the time of year.

    Kate hit the nail on the head.

    (Unbiased opinion of course :whistle: )

    is it really this dangerous as an EMT?

    in Burnout, Stress, & Health

    Posted

    Expired link, I got an ad for how to buy a home.

    Works for me. Plain text for you and anyone else that it doesn't work for;

    Fielding more calls, city EMTs often attacked, injured

    By David Abel, Globe Staff | August 29, 2007

    One had his nose broken four times. Another was attacked with cinder blocks dropped off the roof of a housing project. Others have been stabbed with drug-filled syringes, chased by dogs, and strafed by gunfire after arriving at crime scenes before the shooting stopped.

    Boston's emergency medical technicians, who often run red lights and speed through the opposite lane of traffic to save lives, are trained to confront broken bones and cardiac arrest.

    But EMTs, who are responding to more calls each year, often become victims themselves as they face Boston's rampant street violence without the guns, mace, and nightsticks that police officers carry.

    Last year, 28 percent of the 193 injuries suffered by city EMTs were the result of violence, a figure that has held constant over the past five years, according to Boston Emergency Medical Services. This year EMTs have been injured in 24 attacks.

    Since 1994, four EMTs have left the department as a result of injuries from violence.

    Nationally, no one tracks the number of EMTs and paramedics -- highly trained EMTs -- injured in violence on the job, but the National EMS Memorial Service, a volunteer group in Virginia, said 30 EMTs have died because of violence since 1993, 14 of them while responding to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

    "Violence isn't something an EMT should have to deal with," said Richard Serino, chief of Boston EMS, who noted that more than half of last year's total number of injuries left his employees out of work for a day or more. "One EMT injured as a result of an assault is too many."

    Last fiscal year, the city's 333 EMTs responded to 99,266 calls and made a record 68,943 trips to hospitals-- an increase of about 5,000 since 2002 -- without a significant change in staff.

    Many EMTs said they are overworked and undertrained for what they confront. They said they are increasingly sent to calls that in the past may have been answered by the police -- such as a report of a "man down" or someone drunk in the street -- and too often must work without police assistance to subdue hostile patients or others interfering with their care.

    When they encounter trouble, they have only a radio to call for help and handcuffs to restrain the attacker. Their radios, they say, aren't much help, because they can't call police directly; they must wait for an EMS dispatcher to e-mail police dispatchers.

    James Orsino, who has suffered a broken nose four times during his 23 years as a city EMT, said he has dodged bullets after being caught in the crossfire and been punched more times than he can remember. Like other EMTs, he has also been injured by people not willing to accept his help; he once tore his rotator cuff in a struggle with a man trying to jump off the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge.

    "We're in a time when there's a lot more going on in the street, and you can feel it," said Orsino, president of the EMS division of the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association. "With everyone's resources stretched thin, we often arrive on the scene before police. Those are classic cases to get hurt on."

    Boston EMS, overseen by the Boston Public Health Commission, dispatches teams of two medical technicians from an office adjacent to police dispatchers at police headquarters. When a 911 call comes in, an operator determines whether to transfer the caller to a specially trained EMT dispatcher.

    The department, which has a $37 million budget this fiscal year, offers EMTs the opportunity to take a two-hour self-defense class, but Orsino and others contend it's not enough. He said the city should require EMTs to be certified annually in self-defense, as they are for defensive driving and CPR. He said the department should also outline standard procedures for how to deal with violent patients.

    EMTs also worry about fighting back for liability reasons, he said, which is why they don't carry mace.

    "When someone is violent in a hospital, six people are used to restrain the person," he said. "In the street, it's you and your partner. There's no one else, nothing to help you out. Whatever comes out of it is what happens, which is why so many people get injured. It's a crazy situation."

    Nearly every city EMT has a story about being attacked.

    Jim Allen, 33, who has worked as an EMT for 11 years, said it's not uncommon for people to start yelling as his ambulance passes and to "make violent gun gestures."

    "I've been bitten by more people than dogs," he said. "It seems every other call they dislike you for something. I think it's because of the badge we wear."

    Alcohol and drug abuse are fueling the violence against EMTs. Zach Schiess, 29, who has worked as an EMT for six years, said he was called to a bar in South Boston after a man's arm was twisted in a fight. When he arrived, he said, the man and his girlfriend started swinging at him and his partner, forcing them to lock themselves in their ambulance.

    "You can never take for granted what can happen when someone is drunk," he said.

    City EMTs receive at least eight months of training, from life support to how to use the radios to how to operate the ambulances. The advanced EMTs, or paramedics, receive two years of training, which includes more advanced life-saving techniques.

    Serino said all EMTs are trained to manage aggressive behavior, but he said, "We're always looking for ways to improve our training."

    To cope with the stresses of the job, one city paramedic is writing about his experiences on a blog, "Other People's Emergencies: Random Thoughts of an Urban Paramedic."

    Jay Weaver, a 22-year veteran and the author of urbanparamedic.blogspot.com, has been stuck with a needle by an AIDS patient, confronted people wielding guns and knives, and dragged three blocks by a man who grabbed him through the window of a car.

    On his blog, he covers subjects ranging from how EMTs deal with drunken doctors interfering at scenes, how they subdue people trying to commit suicide, and among other things, how they handle grumpy patients and drivers who cut off their ambulances.

    At the end of a December entry titled "Danger," the 47-year-old paramedic wrote: "We are forever one misstep away from serious injury or even death. The next time we fly through an intersection, the impact might be more powerful. The next time I get stuck with a needle, it just might contain a lethal virus. The next time I walk through a door in the projects, there might be a lunatic waiting for me on the other side with a handgun or a knife. I'm not going to dwell on any of this. You can't do the job if you're afraid of each call."

    On a recent shift, Weaver and his partner weaved through rush-hour traffic. They raced through streets that looked like parking lots for calls that required them to do everything from subduing a large psychiatric patient who began beating his social worker on Boston Common to treating a father who was stabbed while taking his 2-year-old son for a stroll in Charlestown.

    At the end of the night, as their radio continued to squawk, Weaver said the key to surviving was expecting the unexpected.

    "We have family members screaming in our face and people throwing things at us," he said. "You just don't know what you're going to experience on any call."

    Accelerated EMT-B Program

    in Education and Training

    Posted

    You will likely find that the self respecting professionals on this site do not endorse the accelerated EMT training. To make a curriculum that short there are typically many corners cut in the education process that leave the resultant practitioner's competence in question.

    183 hours seems on par from what I've seen of a typical EMT-B course.

    Gun control, the constitution and you, let's keep it civil.

    in Archives

    Posted

    Late to the party, but this has gotten very interesting. I'm of the opinion that if a person desires a gun for self-defense, they don't need anything bigger than a handgun (and certainly not a .44 Magnum). Hunting is a bit trickier. I understand that some people depend on hunting for food ( http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=subsistence.main ) so rifles are the best choice, but there should be a limit to the power of the rifles available for use. Since I'm not all that familiar with rifles, I can't say where the limit should be. Shotguns are even trickier. They're used for both hunting and in combat, so it's hard to say what should be available to civilians. I do believe that any automatic shotguns should not be for sale to the public though. To me, those are combat shotguns only.

    Required gun safety classes, proof of purchase of a strongbox, and background checks should all help for safer ownership. That being said, I don't think there's anything that will keep guns, knives, and other dangerous objects out of the hands of people who have mental health issues due to two things; the 'black' market of guns being sold on the street, and the bigger factor, carelessness on the owner's part.

    Now, I know that all of the restrictions I said above won't be passed for a very long time, if ever, so I'll be more realistic. All assault weapons and anything used by the military should be banned. Since I know the definition was questioned earlier, I'll list my criteria of what makes an assault weapon:

    -Selective firing

    -Magazine of 20 rounds or larger

    -Used by the military

    -Primary purpose is to kill people (handguns excluded)

    -Able to take modifications, such as a laser, under barrel shotgun, or grenade launcher

    If it meets 4 of 5 of the above, it's generally considered an assault rife by me.

    To me, there's no reason why the average Joe needs an AR-15 (the civilian, semi-automatic equal of the M-16 in use by the military). If you need home defense, a handgun should be enough. If you need to go hunting, use a rifle/shotgun. There's no need for anything else to be used by the public.

    Back in the day...

    in General EMS Discussion

    Posted

    You're welcome. I'd also recommend Trauma: Life in the ER as well as Paramedics, both of which were pre-HIPAA TLC shows.

    I can back up ERDoc on these. Love those shows, as they minimize the drama and just present the cases as they are. They run occasionally on Discovery Fit & Health.

    Anxiety

    in Education and Training

    Posted

    Who called 911? If someone else did, are they present?

    How long ago did he/they call 911? Any distress before that?

    Pain level?

    Ability to breathe? Breath sounds?

    Any allergies? Specifically, food ones?

    Is he hot/cold? Pale, sweaty, clammy?

    Is he in shape?

    Any clues that you can see?

    Doctor sued after birth gone wrong

    in Archives

    Posted

    I way I read it is as that the baby had started to come out, then enough force was applied to cause spine separation, but not total decapitation (maybe some skin and muscle holding on in the front?). Then the doctor put the baby back in along with the head, ordered a C-section, and completed the decapitation with the C-section procedure.

    Regardless, I don't think the full details will be known as this will be settled long before it ever gets to a jury.

    Prince George's County Unveils Pink Engine for Breast Cancer Awareness

    in EMS News

    Posted

    Perhaps I should've asked my question differently. You don't want media dollars driving research. From where do you propose the money originates?

    Direct donations. Ideally, it'd be a 100% volunteer run organization so that at least, 95% of donations go directly towards research. That 5% would be for managing a website and minor promotion.

    How about we focus not "equally on all cancers" but aggressively on the most deadly and costly of them? On those holding the most promise for potential treatment modalities, or genetic information that allows attack on other similar cancers?

    We used to focus on curing cancer. Right now we focus on treating it. Bit of a weird thing, eh?

    Wendy

    CO EMT-B

    RN-ADN Student

    Hmm, that's worth thinking about. Perhaps a bit of more donation money could be used on the higher mortality rate cancers with spending bit more of the donation amounts on prevention and awareness for the lower mortality ones. Still, I'd rather see donations going directly towards research and awareness of all, not just who can blow the most on advertising *cough* Komen *cough*

    Rob Davis "Dustdevil" 2012 CAP LAB Scholarship

    in General EMS Discussion

    Posted

    Great question. Though I'm not sure if they'll allow non current providers to play, I would think that it would be an awesome opportunity for future providers. Not only from an educational and pt exposure point of view, but the people that teach it set an example that all should follow throughout EMS.

    I saw some folks that were too timid to step up in front of the group and speak, but that was their self imposed peer pressure. I didn't see a single instance of anyone, peer or instructor, that gave anyone reason to be uncomfortable. Should you choose to go I have zero doubt that you would be welcome by all, taken seriously as a student at your current level of study, and be really, really glad that you went.

    Write your paper Brother! As ak said, there is, unfortunately, very little participation. I'd love to hear the thoughts of an attendee that's not yet worked in the field...

    Well, shoot. I won't be able to attend after all. Recently started a new job and they don't give any time off until 6 months. Yeah, that's right. 6 freaking full months of working there for an extra day off. :thumbsdown:

    Considering this job is what's going to enable me to take an EMT course, I value this job over the lab. I'll have to take it the next time it's offered. Sorry Dwayne, maybe I can give you an opinion on it next year.

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