Hi all, I'm new to the forums here and actually signed up just to get some feedback on this topic. I want to know what others would do in this type of situation.
I'm a fairly new EMT and I was working with a partner I had just met for the first time a couple of days ago. She has a couple of years of experience and as such was not interested in anything I would say or do for the duration of the tour. There were quite a few times when I thought her clinical decision making skills were questionable but one incident in particular has prompted me to find out what more experienced people in the industry would do. I brought the subject up with my supervisor but he played the politician, trying to to say anything for or against either one of us or our point of views.
Here's what happened;
We had a long haul transfer, two hours between cities. Our pt had dementia and was highly confused but when I was attending on the way to the city he was in good spirits, friendly and talkative. After we picked the patient back up from the hospital to take him to his original hospital was when we first began to have issues. First off, my partner completed 100% of her paperwork prior to getting patient contact back. I have no problem with someone filling out demographic information but how can you write in a legally binding document what you found on assessment when we have yet to get a patient to assess? Second, for the first hour and a half of the trip back to the hospital I didn't hear my partner ask the patient a single question. She even later bragged about how great her nap was. Third was when things got serious. Shortly before arriving home our patient got violent and the two of them got in a fight in the back of the unit. No one was injured but she was shaken up pretty bad. I pulled over, helped out and we switched rolls. Since our patient was 80 and I'm in my 20s there was not much of an issue restraining him, and since we were only minutes from the hospital we decided to continue as that was were the closest help was. After the incident we had tremendous support from our company. But the issue that she did not even attempt to assess or monitor our patient is still of great concern to me. I tried speaking with her about it but she blew me off. I tried speaking with her and our supervisor about it but he didn't want to commit either way and she was trying to make me look like an over eager rookie. In my opinion this is absolutely negligence, and the fake documentation is forgery. Since it was written before any of the aggression took place non of that appears on the patient care report. According to our legally binding paper work this looks like a smooth and uneventful transfer. I'm scheduled to work with this individual again in a couple of days but now fear our work atmosphere will be even more hostile because of it.
There are several other events that took place over this tour as well that made me question her decision making skills but I won't get into them for now.
Negligence (What would you do)
in Patient Care
Posted
Hi all, I'm new to the forums here and actually signed up just to get some feedback on this topic. I want to know what others would do in this type of situation.
I'm a fairly new EMT and I was working with a partner I had just met for the first time a couple of days ago. She has a couple of years of experience and as such was not interested in anything I would say or do for the duration of the tour. There were quite a few times when I thought her clinical decision making skills were questionable but one incident in particular has prompted me to find out what more experienced people in the industry would do. I brought the subject up with my supervisor but he played the politician, trying to to say anything for or against either one of us or our point of views.
Here's what happened;
We had a long haul transfer, two hours between cities. Our pt had dementia and was highly confused but when I was attending on the way to the city he was in good spirits, friendly and talkative. After we picked the patient back up from the hospital to take him to his original hospital was when we first began to have issues. First off, my partner completed 100% of her paperwork prior to getting patient contact back. I have no problem with someone filling out demographic information but how can you write in a legally binding document what you found on assessment when we have yet to get a patient to assess? Second, for the first hour and a half of the trip back to the hospital I didn't hear my partner ask the patient a single question. She even later bragged about how great her nap was. Third was when things got serious. Shortly before arriving home our patient got violent and the two of them got in a fight in the back of the unit. No one was injured but she was shaken up pretty bad. I pulled over, helped out and we switched rolls. Since our patient was 80 and I'm in my 20s there was not much of an issue restraining him, and since we were only minutes from the hospital we decided to continue as that was were the closest help was. After the incident we had tremendous support from our company. But the issue that she did not even attempt to assess or monitor our patient is still of great concern to me. I tried speaking with her about it but she blew me off. I tried speaking with her and our supervisor about it but he didn't want to commit either way and she was trying to make me look like an over eager rookie. In my opinion this is absolutely negligence, and the fake documentation is forgery. Since it was written before any of the aggression took place non of that appears on the patient care report. According to our legally binding paper work this looks like a smooth and uneventful transfer. I'm scheduled to work with this individual again in a couple of days but now fear our work atmosphere will be even more hostile because of it.
There are several other events that took place over this tour as well that made me question her decision making skills but I won't get into them for now.
What would you do in this situation?