“There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October.”
– Nathaniel Hawthorne
Our first blizzard of the year just passed through and the first rays of post blizzard sun are shining down upon the front range. October seemed to come and go in a flash here at The Spot and we covered a lot of ground. We started with the normalization of deviance and ended with a look at bad ideas (and why they tend to stick around.) In between we talked about SOAP reporting and being nice. We talked about what makes a good EMT (twice) and thought about what we think about our jobs. Then we addressed atypical chest pain and the meaning of the word pandemic. We even squeezed in some research on cardiac patient care times and Aspirin administration. If you missed any of it, you can still find it all right here.
But this isn’t the only place for fantastic EMS information. What about Greg Friese of Everyday EMS Tips and his article on three stroke assessment memory aids. Or Rouge Medic, who’s been putting in overtime on a debate about paramedic advanced airways. (Multiple posts involved) Micheal over at Rescuing Providence wrote a heart breaking story about a forgotten veteran in “Where’s home?” Ckepmt brings us up to speed on continuous compression CPR. The Happy Medic ha some interesting insight into EMS as a profession. Firegeezer put the quarter in the EMS blogging universe with a prediction regarding the next big paramedic shortage. Mark at Medic 999 gives an amusing and and telling look at how US EMS is precived in the UK. Epijunky at pink warm and dry broke our hearts with the story of the little white houseand Renolds at Random Acts of Reality gave some insight into what it can be like to meet government healthcare targets.
In other EMS news, a hospital in northern California is in hot water for handing out cab vouchers to patients for rides to closed homeless shelters. The associated press addressed the next wave of emergency system abuse when it identified emergency gps beacons as the yuppie 911. Sun Prairie EMS of Wisconsin received a public reprimand for giving patients the hard sell on transport to closer hospitals. A UK paramedic was banned for a year for sucking nitrox on duty. Boston EMS and Boston fire are having a very public very ugly debate over responses and dispatch centers and … I don’t know. And California pulled off a state wide earthquake drillthat involved 6.7 million people. Yes, you read that right. And in the “Don’t let it happen to you” file, a Baltimore, MD medic was suspended for 29 days after he declared a gunshot victim dead but needed to return to the scene 30 minutes later when officers discovered the man was still alive. The victim is recovering.
Big month for podcasts as the EMS Garage / Podmedic / EMS Educast crew invaded the EMS Expo. (Details still surfacing.) Geekymedic and the boys from the garage took an optimistic peek at the future of stroke care. The podmedic interviewed Lisa Booze of the Maryland Poison Center regarding poison gas responses. And we begin and end with Greg Friese and is cohort Buck Feris of the EMS Educast who talked about boning up on our EMS writing skills (Yes all of us.) And I even dropped by to join in a discussion about the Bay Area Paramedic Journal Club.
Come back next month for a look at sternal rubs, the secret ems teacher we all ignore and the answer to the question, “What is ketosis anyway?” I’ll see you soon.
[...] The October EMS Roundup [...]