I wrote recently about screwups with the gear. Equipment(Brain) Malfunction This just proves there is always a new chapter. I checked out my monitor the other day, doing a quick eyeball, BP cuff, monitor leads before checking the battery, doing the user test, and then opening up the back and top compartments for check for…
Month: May 2008
Parade
I want to compliment myself because I took a vow quite awhile back that I would stop whining about all the bad things in this job, and I think I have done a pretty good job of it lately. When you start letting things like lengthy triage waits and pompous health care providers (whether hospital,…
Just a Paramedic
Baby Medic asks in his most recent post Routine about the frustrations of the mundane in EMS: I would like to know how those who have been doing this job for a long time are able to withstand the mundane. Do they no longer live for the exciting calls? Are they content to relax in…
The Asshole
I‘ve been called an “Asshole” by a patient two days running now. I guess I have to reluctantly plead guilty in the first instance. The second, I’m not ready to admit it yet. Here’s how the calls went down. *** The first was for a diabetic, altered level of consciousness. 40-year-old man lying in bed…
Trauma Room
I’ve been bringing quite a number of patients to the trauma room lately. You get hurt in a routine motor vehicle accident, you end up in a regular room in the ED or probably even more likely, a bed in the hallway until they can clear your c-spine, get you off the backboard and send…
The Future of Intubation
I recently taught the bougie station at an airway class for ED physicians. While there I got to sit in on an excellent airway lecture and play with some of the other airway devices in the hospital’s difficult airway cart. There was a vendor there from King Systems helping demonstrate a new product of theirs…
The Church Lady and the Ambulance Attendant
The woman heard a pop as (twisting) she tried to help her (stumbling) mother out of her wheelchair and into the church pew. The pop came from the woman’s knee and she crumpled in pain. She screamed again as we tried to pivot her on her good leg onto our stretcher. The entire congregation turned…
Celtics Fan
The Boston Celtics are back in the championship hunt. As a kid, I was a huge Celtics fan. I watched them on our small black and white TV and then I’d go out in the driveway and dribble around and shoot against the hoop my father had nailed over the garage door. I pretended I…
Multi-Leads
I was asked a question about using Lead III in the post below about 3rd degree Heart Block. While the strip says “III,” it is actually something called “S5,” which I neglected to label. “S5” is done by putting the left leg (red) lead in the fifth intercostal space just to the right of the…
3rd Degree Heart Block
I had an interesting strip the other day. We were called to a physician’s office for an abnormal ECG. The EMD dispatch sent us “hot.” But the prearrival instructions indicated no immediate emergency. Patient was alert talking with good color, no pain and no shortness of breath. And as it usually turns out at a…