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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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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 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…

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…

Back from vacation. It will be the last one for quite awhile. I sort of overdid it this year with travel. The only reason I went this time was I had some tickets I had to use or they would expire this month. Vacation is great, but there are always difficult decisions to make. Do…