The April EMS Roundup
In April, the EMT Spot looked at The EMT Code of Ethics, helped folks decide if they were Ready To Go To EMT School and asked working EMTs the question, Are You The Opening Act, Or Are You The Rock Star? As promised we helped Increase Your Pain Vocabulary and gave you a useful Guide To Swine Flu. I also challenged readers to live by Five Rules For One Shift and taught you how to Rapidly Diagnose Pinpoint Pupils. Are you as tired as I am?
Around the blogsphere (I love that word by the way), Kim at Emergiblog hosted The Handover Blog Carnival with a slew of good EMS related content. Yes, I said slew. Do you want to make something of it? Life Under The Lights has an amusing little (OK big) rant about the term “ambulance driver” with Oh No You Didn’t! The Happy Medic has a painful but amusing story about a driver looking to avoid trouble in, for the diabetic and Peter Canning offer some Miscellaneous tidbits from his EMS world.
In other news, April may have been the month of EMS behaving badly. Did I miss the memo? A UK Medic chose to strip to his underwear when a cashier refused to sell him alcohol while he was in uniform. Speculation abounds regarding why FDNY paramedics had a 98.9% fail rate on the latest lieutenants promotional test. Several videos showing DC paramedics fumbling through emergency scenarios cast some speculative doubt if the medics involved were ready to manage real emergencies. A couple of medics in Huston came out of a call to find their ambulance gone (lock those doors boys).
In the, “I didn’t do it” category, a Worchester medic is accused of fasyfying his report after walking a man having a heart attack down three flights of stairs and a Bronx EMT is charged with abandonment after he falsified a signature and left a five year old unattended in the ER. Anyone for some good news?
Paramedic UK describes a registered database in London where patients can log their end of life decisionsfor paramedics to reference during emergency calls. What a great idea. Last, but not least, JEMS reports that Sunstar Paramedic Ambulance of Florida is trying out a green option to charge all of those on board batteries with solar pannels. Stay green my EMS brothers.
In May I’ll give you some of my unconventional thoughts on EMS and dissect head injury presentations (I promise). We’ll teach you how to strip out an IV fireman style. I’ll teach you a bit about epinephrine and show you when it’s OK to ask the question, “Who’s going to stop me?” And, of course, I’ll have all the latest commentary on what’s happening around the globe with the almost pandemic and more.
I can’t wait to see what happens next. See you soon.
Steve
Tags: april, ems roundup
