We get called for a diabetic and arrive at the nursing home to find one nurse pouring orange juice in the woman’s mouth, while another nurse checks her blood sugar. On the bed table, I see an empty glucagon vial and a syringe. “Her sugar was forty and she was vomiting,” the nurse says. I…
Category: ems-topics
Funk
Back at work. I’ve been trying to put together my conference notes, but for some reason I just feel all EMSed out. It’s odd because usually when I come back from a conference, I’m all psyched up and rearing to go. Today, its been like “What hospital do you want to go to? Okay. We’re…
Hot Dogs
Been slow this week and most of the calls have been for young people with the flu. Yesterday I had a seventeen-year old with fever and diarrhea. He spoke in a death bed whisper. I wanted to say you are not on TV or trying out for a movie role — there is nothing wrong…
JEMS – Bloggers
I understand some EMS bloggers are going to try to get together down at JEMS on Friday night. I am going to try to meet up with them. Blogger Meeting From what I gather, the group could include: EMS HaikuParamedic BlogMad Dog Medic and possibly more. I know Baby Medic will be down there as…
The AutoPulse
A reader asked me to comment on the AutoPulse, the automated CPR device that straps around a patient’s chest and delievers compressions at a consistent rate and depth. Let me start by saying I have never used the device. I have talked to many medics who have and who have been amazed at the machine’s…
Dementia
We’re sent for hallucinations — a third party caller — a man’s daughter says her father is hallucinating and needs to go to the hospital. She says her mother is concerned. ** “We’ve been married 70 years,” the wife says in a deep cigarette voice. “Last night he says there’s a man in the shower….
Thank Yous
A number of months back I had a discussion about thanks or lack of thanks in EMS, after which I decided to keep a record of how many times I had a thank you said to me in a single day. My list only lasted a few days, but it was actually quite lengthy. It…
The Man Who Wouldn't Die (Part 2)
Here’s Part 1: The Man Who Wouldn’t Die Now Part 2: So I’m just sitting around thinking I’ve been doing nothing but routine EMS calls — lots of elderly flu, dehydration, falls, psychiatric, TIA type calls with nothing much to write about despite being so busy when the tones go off and we are sent…
Why Can’t They Fix it
The suburban town where I work three days a week abuts the northern border of the city. It begins with a lower middle class black neighborhood, small one story homes tightly packed together. As you head north the houses get gradually bigger. On the mountain that lines the north and west of the town are…
Regional Meetings
On the second Tuesday of every month, I spend four hours at our regional educational standards and medical advisory meetings. I am not a meeting guy, but we have a good group of people and we get things accomplished, although as with any group sometimes it seems we are always rearguing the same issues. In…
Musings
It’s been very busy lately(five days in a row) — nothing exceptional, just the meat and potatoes of EMS — vomiting, hip fractures, asthma, hypoglycemics, lift assists, seizures, TIAs, MVAs. *** Some of our syringes have retracting needles. After you use them, you hit a button and the needle zips back into the syringe. I…
Baby Medic – EMS Blog
I ran into a medic yesterday who tipped me off to a new EMS blog being written by an EMT/medic student who works for us. I have just read all the entries — it is excellent. So far it is about his ride time as a medic student, but I am hoping he continues it…
Bare Wrist
90-year-old man, unresponsive. The medical dispatch updates us, unresponsive, aides not certain if he is breathing. As I walk across the dark lawn in the rain I see in the picture window two large police officers lifting an old man out of a wheelchair and starting to lower him toward the floor. “The aide says…
Change
This week we had a training session to introduce us to the new CPAP machines we are getting, as well as to review intubation and surgical crichs. It all set me thinking about the changes I have seen since I became an EMT in 1989 and a paramedic in 1993. (I’m sure people who have…
Resolution
At the nursing home I get a quick report from the nurse (who is running the other way down the hall when we come in) which makes me think the difficulty breathing we have been called for is a patient with pneumonia or sepsis. The vitals she tells me are BP 83/34, Sats in the…
Vomiting
The three days I worked over Christmas, I did a lot of vomiting calls. Here’s a question: When you ask how many times have you vomitted, what are you really looking for? The number of times you have vomited or the number of vomitting episodes? I woke up yesterday not feeling too well. Soon in…
Christmas Eve: Fifteen on the Scale
It’s Christmas eve. We get called to one of the local nursing homes for rib pain. The room number sounds familiar. As we wheel our stretcher through the lobby, “Good King Wencelous” plays through the speakers. Gently shone the moon that night, thou the frost was cruel. When a poor man came in sight, gathering…
Best Day Ever
I haven’t worked since Tuesday. No open shifts, which is rare. I guess a lot of part-timers are home from school and looking to make some Christmas or school money. They get priority on the open shifts. I’ve been spending the week driving my girlfriend’s kids around. I’ve been carrying my pager with me hoping…
The Sealed Envelope
The last post on interfacility transfers sparked quite a number of comments, including several on the “sealed envelope” which plagues us. For those not in EMS, the sealed envelope is what the nurse hands you containing the patient’s medical records. Sometimes “Confidential” is written on it. Sometimes they hand you the sealed envelope “for the…
Interfacility Transfers, DNRs, Choices
I recently recieved an email from Jamie Davis, The Pod Medic, about a dilemna one of his listeners faced on a recent call. Here is the story he recieved: This happened to me last month and I’ve been asking around trying to get other people’s opinions about what they would have done, so let me…