I have been injured seriously enough to miss work twice in the last two decades. Neither time was I injured on the job. The first injury was playing softball on our ambulance team (back when we had one). I went from first to third on a single, and as the third base coach signaled me to…
Author: medicscribe
Assembly Line
Many years ago, I worked on assembly lines in factories. I put together and or packaged everything from Christmas Tree stands and door knobs to fast food store deli sandwiches and grocery store beef ribs. The key to the assembly line was to go a little bit faster than you were comfortable going. You had…
Patient Follow-up
One of the greatest shames in EMS is that we so often never find out what the real deal was with our patients. 17 year old boy whose parents swear he never does drugs (but did go to a concert last night) is found in his room the next day talking gibberish, reaching for objects…
Lights and Sirens
Kevin Grange’s new memoir is now out. Lights and Sirens is an authentic, compelling narrative of Grange’s journey through UCLA paramedic school and field internship on Los Angeles’s dangerous streets as he trains to save the lives of victims of heart attack, stroke and trauma. Grange is an excellent writer who does a great service…
Mirrors
In the late 1970s and 1980s, the G——Motor Lodge out on the Turnpike was the place to take your girl for a swinging good time. Mirrored ceilings and heart shaped Love-Tubs. The brochure featured a hairy-chested mustachioed man in a velvet bathroom holding a bottle of champagne in one hand and a filled glass of…
Intranasal Narcan for All
I was on Park Street last week headed into El Mercado to get some pernil (roast pork), yucca and tostones for lunch when a gentleman came up to me and showed me his overdose kit. He said he’d gotten it at the local needle exchange program. He said he had already used it once when one…
Intranasal Medication
One of the best innovations in EMS in recent years has been the introduction of intranasal medication through the use of an atomizer. We currently carry three drugs that we can use intranasally. These are Narcan, Fentanyl and Versed. After several years of experience now with all of these drugs through the intranasal route, here…
The Mentor (or what they remember)
I am working with a young man who I have mentored since his first day as a volunteer at my old suburban post. I have tried to teach him the right way to do the job – to be thorough, to be considerate, to be empathetic, to be professional. We have done many calls together…
The Ideal Medic
I have been a full-time paramedic for over twenty years and a part-time hospital EMS coordinator for over six years. Over the years my ideas of who the best paramedic is have changed markedly. I used to think the best paramedic was the one with the swagger, the one without fear, who never hesitated to…
The Butler Did it
There are any number of different ways to give a verbal handover report at the ED. All sorts of mnemonics. What form you use may depend on what your hospital expects. I try to tell a story. But I don’t tell a story in the same way I would write one. A written story takes…
Practice
A comment and discussion on my previous post sparked me to revisit a post I wrote 9 years ago about the issue of working a body for the practice. Practice Here’s what I wrote back then: My preceptee needs a code. He probably needs a couple. He hasn’t done one as a medic yet. He’s…
AHA 2015 Guidelines: A Preview
On October 15, the new American Heart Association Guidelines for CPR and ECG will be published. Then we will get the answers to the big questions many of us have wondered about? 1. Has epinephrine in cardiac arrest seen its last days? 2. Should paramedics continue to intubate cardiac arrest patients? 3. Will traditional CPR…
Vision
When I was 12 years old, I was a good baseball player. I loved the game and had great hand-eye coordination. I was a contact hitter and a slick fielder. In the regional Little League tournament, I made a diving backhanded catch of a line drive at 3rd base that people talked about for years….
Lights and Sirens
This past week I had the pleasure of reading an advance copy of a new paramedic memoir. Kevin Grange’s Lights and Sirens is an authentic, compelling narrative of Grange’s journey through UCLA paramedic school and field internship on Los Angeles’s dangerous streets as he trains to save the lives of victims of heart attack, stroke…
Thoughts on Ebola
Working at the hospital and on the ambulance, it has been heavy duty Ebola lately. Memos, flyers, posters, policies, and lots of questions. I have written power points, given talks and had many conversations on Ebola. Every day I read the CDC site for updates, which are numerous. I have even, along with two of…
Connecticut Limits Long Boards
On February 21, 2013 I wrote the post In Praise of CEMSMAC, to celebrate the courage of Connecticut’s top EMS doctors to back the draft document on spinal boards proposed by the National Association of EMS Physicians (NAEMSP), and to use that document as a guideline to developing statewide guidelines limiting the use of long…
Breaker of Men
We find our patient by the elevator doors in a public building. He is on all fours, dry heaving, and shaking. He says he is in terrible pain. Security tells us he is a visitor to this public building. They don’t know anything about him other than that he has been screaming that he is…
Streamline
This is the first I have written since May. I did not mean to stop writing. I had many thoughts, but just never got around to putting them down. Why no posts? A variety of reasons, primarily time. As I get older I find myself less sure of myself and my ideas. I can spout…
Whup Kits and Chihuahas
Many of us in EMS love gadgets I remember when I started another EMT sold me a “whup kit,” which was a holster that attached to my belt to hold my tools. I didn’t get a big one, just a modest sized one. It held a pen light, trauma shears, bandage scissors, tweezers, and a…
Connecticut to Allow BLS/First Responder IN Narcan
Yesterday the Connecticut Emergency Medical Services Medical Advisory Committee reversed its position from a year ago and voted to approve Intranasal Narcan as a sponsor hospital option for first responders and BLS services in the state. This does not mean that all first responders and BLS responders will be giving Narcan. It only means that…