Posts Categorized: Medic
Ambien made me post this…
Seriously. It did. I take ambien for sleep(12.5mg XR), as the chances of me sleeping on my own are not so good. But if I am awake past that first 40 minutes it makes me do crazy crap. Like post on my blog. Or clean out the fridge. OR trim, cut and cure 4…
Read More »
Still in there…
One of the most common, and hardest patient encounters for me as a medic is that of someone who has lost their ability to do things. They still have all of their cognitive function.... they are just unable to do the things that you and I take for granted…
Read More »
“Service”
Are we "service" professionals? Do you view patients as "customers"? I work for a corporate system and I am having a hard time wrapping my head around some of corporate nonsense they are using in employee publications as of late.
Read More »
Reality Check
As usual, the EMS blogosphere has found itself in yet another little tiff. This time Timothy Clemans and Medic22 are in a bit of disagreement about proper use of ALS, among other things.
Timothy seems to believe that ALS skills are wasted on patients that are not in risk of losing life or limb. While Medic22's way of responding to him might be over the top, I can TOTALLY understand how and why that would happen. See here and here. We all take this pretty damn seriously, so I understand the frustration.
Read More »
Stubborn
I am a stubborn guy. I know when I'm right, and I don't back down. As a matter of fact, my insistence on being right has alienated more than one person in my life. I just can't handle people who won't admit they are wrong.
Read More »
Lost in Translation
We picked up a young Hispanic couple this evening along with their 5 children. I can only presume they were their children, as they did not speak a lick of English. I tried and tried but no one responded to my pleads in English or my piss poor attempt at Spanish.
Read More »
The Drive Home
In EMS there are a few tools we use as coping mechanisms. CISM(Critical Incident Stress Management) is the most common, despite many organizations not having active CISM systems. While I find CISM to be useful, it is rarely deployed for run of the mill EMS calls. Death and Dying is our business, and if we had a CISM meeting(which includes everyone from first responders to ED doctors and Medical Directors) for every death in the field, we would spend more time in meetings that in our trucks.
Read More »
Uninspired.
For months I have struggled to keep this blog alive. I have posts inside me. I have posts started. I just can't muster them out. This is really the way a big chunk of my life is going. I am incredibly happy with my wife and son, but something is amiss.
Read More »
Being an EMS Dad
I've been a paramedic for about 19 months. Not very long, really. My first year was spent working for two teeny tiny services with teeny tiny call volumes. The last seven months with a service that runs right around 10,000 calls a year with 3 trucks covering. Needless to say, I have experienced a lot more in the last 7 months than I did in the year prior to this.
Read More »
