Resqmedic

Speaking of Obamacare: Did anyone else have new polices set on part time workers not being able to work more than 30 hours in a week? I work at a fire department where our work week is 56 hours, and part time employees regularly pick up shifts in excess of 36 hours a week (won't hire more full time personnel obviously). In 2014 if a part time employee works more than 30 hours a week they are eligible for the employers health care benefits.

You may say that language is your biggest issue, but it also might be your greatest asset, most all of us have had patients who didn't speak a lick of english and I don't speak anything but (except some spanish swear words). Being multi lingual will greatly increase your popularity in the field. I once kidnapped a volunteer at a school because as we were wheeling the patient who didn't speak any english out, she casually said "Hello" to my patient in vietnamese. She was stuck in the ER as a translator for I don't know how long.

Take the birthing dummy and throw a blanket over the actor's nether regions and put the dummy (if it's just a pelvic dummy) under the blanket and have the actor go into "labor". Gives the student a opportunity to ham it up. I would personally pick one of the class clowns to start with as the "Mom", the more people get into it the more fun you will have as a class. Just make sure to reign in the class before they get to much off the rails (somebody always spikes the baby for some reason)

Well keep it simple and fun, remember that it's not about you, it's about the class, what can you do to present the information in a dynamic and memorable way? OB is fun because you can have wacky scenarios, I like to always have one of the guys be the first "mom" to kick things off with a light note and break the ice. Make sure not to read the powerpoints to the class, great way to put them to sleep, just use them to highlight what you are saying. My powerpoints have as little text as possible to keep me from focusing on it and not on my class.

Your not the boss of ME!

If your end goal is to work on a flight service you really should focus your attention there, that would mean getting a job at an ER, preferably at a hospital with a flight service. Once you get your medic you could always part time it on a pre-hospital service to gain valuable field experience, but the biggest learning curve with flight medicine is the interfacilty stuff. Also the advantage of working in the ER is you have access to all the doctors and specialists as they are preforming their assessments and care, you learn so much more by being on the sidelines than watching from the stands. I learned more in my 2 years working in the ER than the previous 6 in in the field, as a MICU medic even. One common denominator you will find with the majority of flight services (all if them in my state) there my be medics, or doctors, but every one of them has a RN, which means you probably should go (ick ick) get that too.

I think my RBS was up around 1000 after the nice old ladies from the church brought by a car load of sweets.

I disagree, my bonus comes after thanksgiving, I'm broke as a joke in Febuary

Anybody score anything good? I'm still looking for a new laptop for teaching (playing games a work).

Patton how do you frame a MVA skit? Do you put in a open house, or is it piggybacked on the high school events? We have no school so that wouldn't be an option, and we missed the fire safety month, but we could always do it whenever I guess. As for a controlled burn, well they are nice and legal here, so report away, I promise to show up and not write myself a ticket. I had never considered using one as a promotional objective, great idea, I do happen to have a couple buildings we are considering for future RIT/FF survival classes. So that is very doable. And Dennis, I'm just going to plagiarize the "Our families Our town", that is perfect. Thank you all very much for the imput.

They do pay property taxes, they are quite reasonable, but that is an intriguing idea, it would certainly attract the type of people we are looking for, people who have roots in the community and property to protect. And we have placed ads in the local newspaper and posted help wanted signs on the department door, to no avail. I have been thinking about making a recruitment poster, but I am just a dumb paramedic, and I'm fairly certain it would end up looking like a kids art project. I have someone who I know that is a graphic designer, but I don't know what angle to use, or what would be catchy content.

So here is my dilemma, I work in a urban area with transporting FD/ALS, yet I live in the sticks and volunteer at my VERY small local FD, first responder only. We need people, really badly, like about 25% of the calls nobody is responding to because we don't have anyone around (down to about 6 active people all with full time jobs and kids). And since I was voluntold to be the EMS director I have been wracking my undersized brain on how to recruit a bunch of farmers and rural folks to join the Fire Department. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

I believe the stand alone A&P classes reflect most institutes of higher learning "Perpetual student" attitude, where having the student taking multiple classes loosely related to the core curriculum makes for a more well rounded graduate, In college I took Pharm classes much more in depth than required by my program, and it helped foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of it. (Probably should have done the same with Cardiology and all those sciences, alas I was a broke college student) For the goal of putting EMS providers on the street, the inter-graded classes are the quickest and most cost effective, but as an educator I would rather my students learn every subject much more in depth than I have the opportunity or time to teach. It's kind of a catch 22.

The lovely Patton is quite right, EMR would be a good place to start if you are interested in getting your feet wet. The EMR is nice if getting a job on an ambulance isn't your immediate goal, plus it will give you a leg up on an EMT program, and looks nice on a resume. Most all career fire departments require their employees be trained at least to the Emergency Medical Responder level. Always follow the advice of beautiful blondes! (except Jenny McCarthy, she is an idiot)

Most all community colleges have an EMS program, probably the easiest (if not the most expensive) way to break into the field. And depending on your state, many EMS services and will offer Medical first responder and EMT courses, sometimes even Paramedic, usually at a lower cost than community colleges. You might even be able to join the service and have the class offered to you for free, this is quite common in rural areas where finding people willing to do EMS is difficult.

Now I'm sure this is one of those volunteer vs full time debate that I'm sure have been a battle in every EMS/Fire forum everywhere. But as a person that has chose EMS/Fire to be my profession, I have a certain sensitivity to people saying they would gladly do my profession for free. Where I work they are currently attempting to replace the career FF EMT-P with part time personnel, and yes they do have the same minimum qualifications, but I do see a significant difference between the career professional and the people who have this as a second hobby job.l I am also a volunteer FF in my home town, and I can tell you I certainly treat the 2 jobs quite differently.

As a medic who had to work with the model of siting in the bus waiting for my volunteer partner to drive in from home, I agree, it will do nothing to have only one full time employee. Better off to have 2 part time people manning the station. Which of course would kill their $160k budget.

Hello and I am also from the north, a bit less north than Ontario however.