Professional Appearance and Conduct Guidelines

[TerrfyinFlyinSrvc]

With the various tv programs and movies depicting EMS personnel I thought it would be a good time to review appearance and conduct guidelines.

Remember, most people's expectations of you are going to be drawn from popular tv shows, so you want to get this correct.

Appearance

1. Hair: Male hair should be greasy and unkempt at all times. If you wash it, always comb a handful of dirty motor oil back through it to maintain the sheen and wet dog smell.

2. Only shave once a week, on your first evening off, so that you always have a heathy growth of a minimum of 3-day stubble on the job. Think Bluto, Sonny Crockett, or George Michael. Face should be greasy and sweaty at all times, so the public knows you are a hard worker.

3. Dental Hygiene should be maintained with cigarettes, pizza, and brushing your teeth with beer or scotch.

4. Uniform, especially the shirt. Shirts should be wrinkled and stained at all times. Use them to change oil and decon the ambulance to achieve the proper condition. Then crumple into a ball and drive the ambulance back and forth over it several times to set the creases. This uniform should then be worn 24 hours a day including sleep periods for a minimum of a week for proper seasoning. It should only be removed to jump a co-workers bones. See Below

5. Shoes, the dirtier the better. Never tie them.

6. Females should be immaculately attired at all times. Make-up should be wedding day quality. Hair should be freshly set with no more or less than 3 loose strands. These 3 loose strands are to be brushed out of the face whenever working a code, arguing with a coworker or preparing to jump a coworkers bones. All blouses should be one size too small to prevent buttoning fully and pants should be very tight in the buttocks area.

Conduct

1. When working a code on a patient, the family will feel they are getting better service if you scream alot. Especially at the patient, something like "Don't you die on me you bast@@d!!" is usually appropriate. Remember proper CPR should look like a mugging with the exception of compressions which are done quite gently. The defibrillator should be set to make the pt come a minimum of 8 inches off the floor.

2. Human skin is stronger than sheet steel. So whenever giving an injection or starting an IV, be sure to jab the needle in like you are stabbing a rabid bear. If you do decide to remove the air from a syringe, make sure to also shoot an indeterminate amount of the lifesaving drug into the air, over your shoulder is best.

3. You have lights and sirens for a reason. Use them. Especially for sandwich runs, shift changes and to catch your favorite programs. It is against policy to run L/S at less than 90mph including when backing into the ED bay.

4. Communication is an essential part of this job. Be prepared to scream alot, all the time. Doctors, dispatchers, nurses, coworkers, and patients will expect you to yell and argue about everything. Your 150 hrs of BLS education is of far greater depth than any college degree.

5. If you ever find any drugs near an unresponsive pt, especially powders, the proper form of testing is to moisten your finger and taste it. You can instantly identify any substance and the specific dealer via this method.

6. BSI is only used during plague conditions at which point you don your spacesuit, which all ambulances carry. Gloves are only donned when you can remove them in a dramatic manner, preferably after the pt has died. When confronted with a dying junkie who is vomiting and bleeding from the mouth, artificial respiration is best given mouth-to-mouth.

7. The drugs carried on your unit are for the pts, unless you are having a bad day. Then help yourself.

Always make sure you have a bottle of liquor so you and your partner can have a nip between calls.

8. The EMS life can be rough on personal relationships. Make sure all fights between you and your ex-wife, SO, family members and anyone else always take place at the station, the hospital, or during a call. This way everyone knows just how conflicted you are.

9. Finally, sex on the job. Males may wish to carry Viagra, Cialis or a similar drug with them as every single shift will require you to be able to perform in an athletically sexual manner. Females may desire a personal lubricant. It may be a coworker, someone at the hospital, a family member of a patient, or even a patient. And this may happen in your ambulance, a handy closet, or next to a deceased patient. You may even have to do this several times in a single shift. So be prepared.

Your input and suggestions are welcome. Remember we have an image to uphold.

neal

[kyle308]

ill make sure im on that next time i go in.....now where did i put my viagra

[temsp40]

don't forget -- equipment.

1. All gear bags shall be replaced with brand new at the start of every call.

2. If you are a paramedic, you will be issued a brand new monitor/defibullator/pacer/microwave/satellite communications/cool looking thingy every shift.

3. Your ambulance will be washed by the little gnomes kept in the outside compartment after every run so that it never looks like you have been running non-stop from one end of the world to the other.

Runs

1. We never have to go for the "my tooth hurts" and explain to the patient that most ED's do not have a dentist on staff.

2. We never get the call for the "code brown" and the staff just can't handle it.

3. All patients for all runs will be located either (a) on the first floor with plenty of room to get the rack in or ( near the elevator (which is plenty large enough to accomodate your cot, your partner and all your new gear) so as to aid with extrication.

4. Exception to rule 3, any patient that requires extensive extrication will be deathly ill, require multiple agency response (up to and possibly including the Army Corps of Engineers) and will have the patient require your presence to save their life.

5. At least once per shift you will end up working with the "new guy" and saving one of their patients due to their inherent ineptness because this is their first day on the job.

New Employee Orientation

1. On your first day, we guarantee you will be exposed to one of the following: multiple gunshot victim, cardiac arrest victim that will make it, birth, enraged psych patient who will hold you hostage until your partner does something about it, or an MCI that you will have to deal with the fact that people will die.

2. Your partner will be our most senior and grizzled paramedic who will make your life a living hell, this person will ensure that there is absolutely nothing you can do right, this person will ensure that everytime a run is completed you are to clean and decon the entire unit, and eventually will require you to save their life.

3. You will be assigned to the busiest sector available and get in trouble for not being finished with one run when you are assigned the next one.

[hammerpcp]

How did you guys get inside my life?

[Michael]

How did you guys get inside my life?

That avatar doesn't present much of a barrier.

[hammerpcp]

That avatar doesn't present much of a barrier.

My beaver is not my life. 8)

[akroeze]

My beaver is not my life. 8)

That's what SHE said

(Did that make any sense? :?)

[SSaint]

That's what SHE said

(Did that make any sense? :?)

Yes. It did.

That was pretty good actually.

[Scaramedic]

I understand what she said and I agree my is not my life.

Peace,

Marty

:joker:

[Scaramedic]

Back on topic..

You must have a problem to be like TV EMS, examples..

Alcoholic-Tommy Gavin from Rescue Me

Sex addict-Carlos from Third Watch

Gambling Addiction-Wyatt Cole from Saved

Schizophrenia-Doc Parker from Third Watch

Idiocy-75% of all the Medics on Paramedics

Peace,

Marty

:joker: