April is a promise that May is bound to keep.
- Hal Borland
I can’t make any promises about May, but I can venture a guess that the world of EMS will be every bit as interesting as it was in April here at The Spot. I started by telling you about the hydrogen peroxide, blood stain trick and then moved on to a few thoughts about assessment and scope of practice. Then we spent a few suspenseful days on the EMT liability pop quiz followed up with some thoughts on failure and a request to tell The Discovery Channel about The Chronicles of EMS. I ended off with a little observation about bringing yourself to work and that brings us here. *Deep breath.*
Of course, that’s just the stuff that happened here. We also had the drama of Mark “What’s an Ash Cloud?” Glencorse stuck in Denver. Rogue Medic offered my favorite quote of the month, “Severe pain + 2mg of Morphine = severe pain.” Here’s his post about medical command permission. Greg Friese of Everyday EMS Tips had a chat with EMS fiction author Jaxine Daniels. David Konig and Justin Schorr went back and forth over the term “customer service” in EMS. Chris Kaiser got all riled up over what he felt was a slap in the face to medics everywhere. Michael Morse told us about what it’s like when you have nothing left. Jaramedic had something to say about partners and EpiJunky played inside of a dead body and had the typical EMS geek reaction, “How cool.”
In EMS news this month, holy hang-on-to-your-stuff, a laptop fell from a medical helicopter and almost hit a ten year old boy. A Colorado deputy will faces charges for arresting and jailing a fire captain during medical call. Virginia firefighters are being investigated for alleged ‘falsification of clinical hours and procedures’. (Is that becoming a recurring theme?) Can I get an Amen? A Manatee, Florida man was arrested after making 18 calls to 911 in two months. In a spine chilling op-ed piece, The New York Times reported that the drug-resistant staph strain M.R.S.A. is a monster of our own making. A DeKalb County Georgia EMS worker had to inform a 90 year old patient that their system was simply unable to provide an ambulance for her 45 minutes after she called for help. (It always comes back on us folks.) And The L.A. County Fire Museum announced that it will be presenting four new “Pioneers of Paramedicine” lifetime achievement awards.
In the podcast world, The EMS Garage discussed some ideas for how to take EMS to the next level. The GenMed Show talked about stress in the workplace and how to cope. The EMS Educast tackled pediatric emergency care and The Medicast threw down with a great topic for EMT listeners, BLS Epinephrine and the EpiPen.
What’s coming next? May’s going to bring a couple of EMS Bootcamp Presentations from yours truly, the next incarnation of the Handover Blog Carnival and whole bunch of stuff that we just can’t predict. You’ll just have to stick around and see. Thanks for being a part of it.
But I Need More Roundup Now!:
(Don’t panic)
Great round up and great blogs mentioned, All a worthwhile read or listen. Looking forward to May.
Thank you.
I feel a need to spend some time on pain management. There are some good studies that I have not posted about, yet.
None of these studies even mention 2 mg doses of morphine, because they are studies of adult patients. I have frequently had orders for 2 mg of morphine for adult patients.