Category: Uncategorized

Giving a verbal report at the hospital is an art form. You want to be able to tell a story clearly and with brevity and nuance so you can accurately convey the issues the patient presents. You want to encapsulate the entirety of your physical exam, history, treatment and thirty minutes spent with the patient…

There are certain calls you get that usually turn out to be nothing — baby choking, person slumped over wheel of car, fall with severe bleeding. In fact, just about every call you get, usually turns out to be nothing much. That’s good. Over time it is a great calmer. I usually say to myself,…

I just finished reading* a great EMS-police crime/thriller written by Katherine Howell, a former Australian “ambulance officer.” One of the main characters is a woman paramedic, the other is a female detective. The paramedic’s husband, a police officer, gets shot and their baby is kidnapped. From that point on it is a nonstop rush to…

Circus atmosphere:Yankees come up big, top Red Sox in series opener Connecticut is divided in a diagonal line between Red Sox and Yankees territory. The Red Sox rule the North Eastern section, the Yankees the South Western. There is much intermixing, however, and the center of the state (where I live) is up for grabs….

File under: Something New Every Day The group home patient with a history of mental retardation was found unresponsive in his wheel chair. The small frail man has significant kifofis. His body is flaccid and he cannot even hold his head up. The quick story is he was found that way this morning. Normally he…

We are called to a nursing home for a lift assist. I have never done a straight lift assist in a nursing home before, so I am a little puzzled. Isn’t this something that nursing homes are supposed to do themselves? The short, squat nurse demands to know why we have brought in our stretcher,…

This morning we had a call for a 70 year old man with dsypnea and found him guppy-breathing with a BP of 210/100, HR – 144, skin ice cool and clammy, unable to get a SAT, ETCO2 of 50, RR of 32. Wheezes and crackles in lungs. Upright CO2 wave form. He was sitting on…

Instead of writing about one of my calls – I haven’t had much to write about lately — I’m going to write about a call a medic I know did a few weeks ago. In addition to being a good story, it is instructive. The call comes in as a syncope. A basic crew responds…

I like it when my preceptee beats me to work. It shows good work ethic. And I’m almost always 15 minutes early. *** There is a pro and con article in one of this month’s emergency medical services magazines about cell phone use on the job. I hate it when my partner’s phone goes off…

Random Comments at the ER this Week “I’m the only nurse for 30 patients so its going to be awhile.” “No! No! I just got four new patients. I cannot take another. I’m calling her back. She’s going to have to put him some place else. We’re full here! No! No! No!” “We don’t do…

The call was for a drunk. We were updated that he was seizing, but he wasn’t when we got there. His wife said he’d been drinking vodka for a week and she wanted him to go to detox. I put in an IV lock, checked his ETCO2 which was 35 and his sugar which was…

“Are you going to give me back my husband’s medicine list?” the woman asks. “No,” the medic says, deadpan. “I have a collection of them at home. Boxes actually. Overflowing. I particuarly like these — the little booklets with flowers on the cover. They are the Van Goughs of my collection. I’m seeing a psychiatrist…

My post on Tuesday generated quite a number of comments centering around the issue of EMTs going right from EMT class to medic school. Here are my thoughts on it: When I started you had to have at least a year of field experience before they would even consider you for admission to medic school….

We went to a doctor’s office for an unknown. The secretary led us to an exam room where a man in his sixties sat in a wheelchair, his chin on his chest,eyes closed, looking very tired. He had a huge distended abdomen and a hint of a yellow tinge to his skin. His wife was…

Eric from the EMS Haiku site has just posted his trip report from the JEMS EMS Today conference. Like his blog, it is a good read. His post gives a good feel for what the conference is like, complete with educational session recaps and photos of interesting products. Add his site to your bookmarks.

I had just left the locker room at the fitness center and was standing at the information desk when a man ran out of the men’s room and said, “Somebody call 911, he’s having a heart attack!” Now I hate these situations. I am in “plainclothes.” I am anonymous, yet I carry a card that…

It’s been my week for diabetics. Actually where I work, as I’ve written before, is a diabetic town. Some towns are trauma towns or heroin towns. I work the streets of a diabetic town. Lots of African-Americans and Jamaican-Americans with diabetes. I’m constantly going into dark cluttered homes or into nursing homes for the unresponsive….

Got called to a nursing home for an unresponsive, found an obese woman laying across the bed, snoring respirations. Nurse says patient has been nodding off all morning, and won’t respond to her at all. Plus her SAts are low. This is not like her. Deep sternal rub opens her eyes, but then she shuts…

The night before I left Baltimore, I met up with some bloggers and podcasters at a local sportsbar. It was great to put faces with people. The meeting was organized by Eric Augustus of EMS Haiku and Dan White of Paramedic Blog. Dan works for alliance medical and is the man behind the AllMed AVC…