hewittc4

My $0.02. EMS is broken. When I worked in a rural part of Arizona, I was the one that tubed every patient that needed it. Now that I am working in a city, I haven't gotten to tube anyone, nor will I get to. Why? Because here I respond with the fire department. I am competing with 2 fire medics and 2 fire EMT-Is. All 4 of them get a chance before I do. And if they can't get it, then I won't be allowed, because if a firefighter can't get the tube, then a private medic had better not because it will make the fire department look bad. Hell, I've only gotten to start, maybe 10 IVs in the last 6 months. What departments were used in the study? I know that there are some good fire departments that provide excellent patient care and take EMS seriously, I just have never seen one myself. Kinda like space aliens, people claim they exist, but I haven't seen one yet. Were the tubes actually bad or were they dislodged by the hospital? I have had patients that had a confirmed good field tube, that was dislodged when we got the patient to the ER. I actually had to tell a doctor that lifting the patient's head by the ETT might not be a good idea. Fortunately, he agreed. What equipment was used? We just got CO2 monitors on some of our rides. The rest only have the litmus paper. And finally, what training and retraining do the medics get? OR time is rare around here. The nearest cadaver lab is 100 miles away, and that is hard to get into.