xselerate

You know this is great advice. Why is it that we have a job of signifigant mature responsability, that of saving lives, and yet as soon as the job is over people revert back to the maturity level of a 5 year old? Whine whine whine. I'm being mandated. Whine whine whine. All these jobs are bullshit. Whine whine whine. Thanks for laying the advice out there medik!

Not only is this a great learning tool but it is ABSOLUTLY hilarious. http://www.rtlyrics.com/02Masks.htm

emmmm slurpies........

It's time.... if something amazing is going to happen it will happen when they pull the plug. If not.... well everyone's maker calls out to them.... we need to be willing to accpet that sometimes.

Right there.... that's where you got me to agree with you.... but I still agree with Dust that there isn't much I would ask except maybe when did it start, what were they doing, and what is the history. That should take about 20 seconds, you should be done giving o2 and be securing your straps.

Well.... there is a slight, very slight, rhyme and reason.... it helps to know someone.... yaknow? :wink:

I second that. And hurry.

Yeah it's kind of sad.... EMTs can get into supression meeting lower standards then straight out applicants and it's why a lot of people go through EMS to get there. I personally think this is stupid.... I wouldn't want EMTs taking care of me who got in with lower standards and I wouldn't want FFs coming in to rescue me who got in with lower standards either.

Well... that's one... but in 20 years NYC EMS has never had to lay any one off or freeze hiring..... sooooo if your getting fired it's cause you screwed up big time and civil service isn't going to save you (nor should it, if your that bad). The real benefits are promotion.... it makes you eligable to take the LT promotional exam and the FF promotional exam. I think, although I'm not sure, it is required for the paramedic upgrade class. Either wasy it's good to have. That's just once your on the job. A big thing about civil service people is that they have to get hired first! So if you didn't apply for civil service and the guy next to you did but you have been waiting 3x as long...... guess who is getting hired.

wow dust.... i've gotten into some arguments on this board.... but your goin to have the first all women lynch mob coming after you.... damn.... i don't know if your really brave or stupid.... either way good luck!

I'm a little confused as to what this has to do with anything or where it came from. I'm not sure if your referring to NYC where an ambulance is called a bus.... if you are then what's the problem? It's just the local terminology.... you get it everywhere....

All of these are good suggestions but I just thought of something fairly obvious.... your concern (and mine) on a basic level is the viability of your patient. They are immobilized because further injury to a spinal cord fx could really harm the viability idea, so we have c spine out of the way. Now.... your patient is complaining about SOB.... your patient is complaining.... meaning they can speak.... meaning that even if they don't know they are okay (and viable) you should know they are. And worse comes to worse you always have you trusty ambu bag. Immobilization is critical if the MOI demands it (I can't speak for any practices medics may have with KEDs) and there is no reason why you can not go into an ER with an fully immobilized and breathing patient (be it that they are breathing or you are breathing for them.)

I never really gave it much thought, but I suppose legs and arms aren't what make good EMTs/Paramedics... its smart heads and good caring hearts.

I may be partial to this because I have so experience with USAF but if you want to be the best of the best go Pararescue. Those guys are... insane.... brave.... smart.... insane.... tough as nails.... insane lol The training is, I believe, 2 years long. And physically (at least the first part where they try to weed out most) it is insanely intense. Medically you will be brought up to paramedic.... and at the end where will you learn how to be a war time tactical rescue medic? You get sent to train with the NYC FDNY working as an observer on ambulances treating GSWs and such. Oh man.... if I really wanted to perform field surgury hanging upside down thousands of feet up a sheer clif I totally would have done Pararescue. GOOD LUCK!

309 sq mi (801 sq km) if anyone was curious about NYC.... while it may not seem like much FDNY EMS responds to upwards of 4000 (four thousand) calls a day (every day). On a slow day we may do 3100.... kind of makes thousands of sq miles look easy in comparrison.

haha I'm setting up new away messages right now

I'm a little embarrassed. I know that in NYS you are required to have at the very least a high school diploma / GED to be an EMT. Now.... I mean do I really have to say where I'm going with this? Okay so some people have a caps fetish and I can deal with that... my issue is with the complete lack of punctuation. Is that seriously what your PCRs look like? Positives, negatives, and medication tend to get all kinds of blurred without proper punctuation. The fact that you could possible be responsible for documenting medical information about a patient (anyone can get medical info, I am NOT going to even touch on the idea of you performing a patient assessment and documenting that) kind of makes me want to crawl into a hole and let the CFRs take care of me (no offense to CFRs heh heh). My one regret is that I did not get to reply to this message first and rip further lol

I don't know about this.... I recently gone through this particular thing at the FDNY academy and they made it very clear... anyone can drop off any child at any FDNY ambulance and the crew is required to take the child, attempt to get any information possable about name, age, and medical history, and transport the child to the er. I honestly don't know any of the specifics about the supression side but I thought they were suppose to do the same and call an ambulance to transport. But I still think it's a great program. I would rather the paperwork that goes along with it then pronouncing a decomp baby

wow.... i feel kind of bad now at all that crap i got from my job.... i got 5 pairs of pants, 5 button up work shirts, 5 polo shirts, belts, hats and ties (dress unifrom stuff), 1 pair of dress paints, a dress jacket, 2 dress shirts, boots, shoes (again for dress), eisenhower jacket, turnout coat, helmet, gas mask with tactical thigh case, and a tech bag fully equiped. theres more but i cant think....

I know medics with 20 years on the job that say you need a minimum of 3 years BLS experience first.... I now see medics here that say the opposite.... It would seem to me it don't matter one way or the other. If you want to go to medic school go, if you want to wait then wait.... with the broad spectrum of opinions on the subject theres no real answer.... only your own experience. Good night......

All excellent... I admit I wouldn't have thought of all that... getting paid what we get paid I wouldn't have put so much thought into it if I knew I was just goin to immobilize them anyway... which I most certainly would have But still... all really great points made by Eydawn...

Where I am, in NYC, you can have EMTs that are 18 years old join the fire department, last I checked. And you can certainly have 18 year old EMTs working private transports.... although not all the privates will let you drive. I would suggest you get some time out there assessing patients and learning the meds and diseases before going into medic school. But that's just a suggestion. Good luck.

Before I read this I was becoming sick.... now I feel that impending sense of doom.... My regular job is EMS but I volunteer for a volly ambulance company near where I live. We have to throw car washes to collect money for gas and service for our vehicle. If we went to a job and checked a patients name on a list of last years donations and decided not to provide a service I would probable be stricken with projectile vomit. Emergency services, volunteer or not, ARE HELD TO A DIFFERENT STANDARD then any other type of business/organization. They should have put the fire out and then the community should have billed the guy triple his backed dues. They guy was obviously in the wrong... but still.... it dosn't sit right with me....

Ahh... In the privates working with these people that sometimes knew I was there and sometimes didn't I got into the habit of calling some of them dear. Most of them I knew from previous transports. I had one women that I brought for radiation treatments every couple of weeks or so and one night around 3 in the morning we got a call for her again... she was unresponsive with little BP to speak of and a world of oh s***. I'll tell you that she felt like family... shes one of the very very few of my patients I remember. But I havn't used the term since I started 911. I've been thinking of new names since I started 911 like.... 'dear.... god what have you been drinking'. :wink:

ok nate... i'll give you this one.... almost.... I still have little tolerane for off duty medical personell that dont understand there place and mine outside the hospital. They should simple know better. Your method of getting rid of people who are in your way is pretty good, I'll admit. After thinking it over I even use this tactic myself often, and I'll continue doing so. But when your way dosn't work it's still nice to know I can have the cop pull out the baton