207 Reasons to Stay Current

on Your Continuing Education

Perhaps you’ve already heard, starting July 1st, 207 EMT’s in the city of Boston will begin serving suspensions ranging from 45 days to 9 months for falsifying their training records and claiming that they had attended continuing education classes that they had not.

Now, to add a little bitterness to the whole thing, a few Massachusetts EMT’s have come forward to say that the suspensions are unfair. Instead of taking the suspensions with grace, serving the punishment and feeling fortunate to still have a certification, they are coming forward with some comments about the usefulness of continuing education.

Terry Urekew, an uninvolved bystander in the whole debacle, chimed in with this quote, “Give everyone a $100 fine and community service. Don’t take someone’s livelihood away from something that has no impact on whether or not we are better EMTs,” You can probably guess that a guy who writes a website with the subtitle, “Medicine moves fast…keep up.” is going to probably take issue with Terry’s assessment of the usefulness of keeping up on medical education. You’d be right.

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Name The Chronicles Contest

If you subscribe to splatter (The twice monthly newsletter of The EMT Spot) you already knew that there was a big announcement coming today. You’ve just been standing by for the nitty-gritty details. what can I say? Sometimes it’s nice to have the inside track.

If you don’t get Splatter you should really consider signing up by typing your name and e-mail address in the sidebar box. Then you can get the inside juice as well.

In any case, here’s the big news. The Chronicles of EMS is getting ready to go big time. They’re pitching this show to everyone from The Discovery Channel to Oprahlooking for a network. One piece of feedback they’ve been getting is that the show needs a new name. The Chronicles of EMS – The Reality Series just doesn’t slide off the tongue the way TV producers like.

This is where you come in. This is where you get to take part in the biggest contest in EMS blogging history. Here is your chance to name the new reality series. If you think you have a better name for the show click here and go to the chronicles website for information on how to enter. You can also go here for all the rules and official stuff.

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The May EMS Roundup

“The worlds favorite season is the spring. All things seem possible in May.”

- Edwin Way Teale

As the days grow longer and the nights grow warmer here in Colorado, I feel the rush of summer on the horizon. Indeed all things may seem possible, but the first half of this month seemed consumed with podcasts and webinars. Then I remembered what I always yell to the first base runners on my daughters softball team, “Finish strong!”

I started the month by asking for a few Handover submissions. (And I got them.) I also told you about a few upcoming free webinars for National Registry skills and developing patient rapport. (Thanks for joining.) Then we had a guest post by EMS educator extraordinaire Jim Hoffman all about burnout and rebirth and I speculated about folks who push the self destruct button on their careers. Then I kicked off a new series in an effort to bring you the ultimate guide to EMT vital signs. To that end, we dissected the pulse and the blood pressure. I made good on my promise to bring you The Handover Blog Carnival and that brought us here. Strong indeed.

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The Chronicles of EMS

In case you missed it, something big happened in EMS over the weekend. Last Friday night EMS folks from around the world gathered in San Francisco for the premier of the reality series The Chronicles of EMS.

If you haven’t seen the first episode yet, you can find it right here. I strongly encourage you to take 20 minutes out of your day and watch it right now. This series and the individuals who surround it are worth watching not only for what they are doing, which is incredibly cool, but for what they represent.

The Chronicles of EMS isn’t just an extremely cool EMS documentary. It’s a milestone. It’s representative of a shift in the conversation about what EMS is, what it’s supposed to be and how we’re going to help it evolve. The conversation about the future of EMS is shifting away from the policy makers and mainstream EMS media and becoming guided by the individuals on the street who are doing the job each day. It’s an interesting and powerful shift.

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The E-Book is Coming!

OK, I can’t keep this to myself any longer. It’s time for the big announcement. With the final draft still in the mail from my editorial team and the final design still lacking a few details, it would probably be best to just keep this under wraps for a few more weeks, but I can’t wait.

My first E-book is scheduled for release on January 21st, one week from today. The e-book will be free and it will be available right here at The Spot.

The Book is called The Non-Conformists Guide to EMS Success. This book is the culmination of two decades of EMS experiences, mistakes, failures, trials, and errors that lead to my ultimate success. My goal was to write something that would be useful to EMTs at any stage in their career. And I didn’t hold anything back. This is my road map to finding true success and fulfilment in EMS work.

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Regarding The Duty To Act

A while back, when I wrote about the duty to act, I emphasized the idea that the duty to act only extends to “on-duty” medical personnel. In fact, my exact words were,

“If you are a trained medical professional and you are acting with an expectation of compensation you have a duty to act appropriately and within the scope of your training when called to assist with an emergency situation.”

I figured I should emphasize the idea that trained EMTs don’t have a duty to act when they aren’t being compensated for their services. This seemed to be the point of greatest confusion. I never thought much about making it clear that while you are on duty, working as an EMT, you are required to act.

I know … it seems painfully obvious. I thought so too. But over the past few weeks, there have just been a slew of stories that seem to fly in the face of the obvious.

First, there was the strange story of the UK paramedic who watched his EMT partner deliver a non-breathing child, didn’t call for any assistance, then watched her try to resuscitate the child. To his credit, he did drive her to the hospital while she continued the resuscitation attempt in the back.

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The C-Spine Immobilization Controversy

C-spine immobilization is not a benign procedure.

It’s not something that’s always worth doing “just in case.” It’s not risk free, comfortable or even practical. And, now, recent research from the Washington University School of Medicine suggests that it may not even do such a good job of keeping the patient’s head still.

Does anyone else agree that we’ve seen enough bad news about c-spine now that we can stop the massive overuse that plagues our industry? Can we start evaluating people and deciding who does and doesn’t meet criteria for spinal immobilization. Please?

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Are All Aspirin Created Equal?

“I took an Aspirin when I started feeling the pain.”

Close to a decade after the Aspirin for chest pain idea hit the main-stream, more and more folks are medicated themselves at the onset of chest pain. But are all Aspirin created equal? Does chewing make any difference in the rate of absorption?

No … and yes.

A recent study out of the University of California, San Diego took 14 healthy volunteers and feed them a moderate dose of Aspirin on three separate occasions. First they were asked to swallow adult size tablets, then they were asked to chew adult sized tablets and last they were asked to chew children’s chewable Aspirin tablets. After each administration the volunteers had blood drawn at set intervals. The results were predictable, but telling. After swallowing the adult tablets, 6 of the 14 volunteers had no detectable levelsof Aspirin in their system 45 minutes post swallow.

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Chest Pain: Is EMS Really Best?

Short answer: Yes.

Score one for EMS. A study published last January in the American Heart Journal evaluated transport and treatment times of patients who called 911 for their chest pain and patients who sought private transportation.

They found that patients who transported themselves to the emergency room arrived at the hospital in 35 minutes while patients who called 911 arrived in 39 minutes. (On average.)

Hold the phone. Before you tell grampa to forget the phone call and jump in the car, consider this; The study also concluded that the patients who dialed 911 received initial stabilizing treatments faster AND definitive treatments faster as well.

Those who called the ambulance received initial care like oxygen, aspirin and nitro in approximately six minutes as opposed to the self transporters who took 32 minutes to receive these interventions.

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Tulsa EMS In The Classrooms

Most of us have been there before. A puking, nearly unconscious teenager on our pram. All the predictable problems; airway issues, responsiveness issues, behavioral issues. When kids learn the hard lessons about alcohol and drugs we’re often the ones who get called in to clean up the mess. And, as tiring as the routine gets, we do what we can.

We protect the airway, administer our oxygen, start the IV, monitor the capnography, pay attention to the heart rhythms, the whole kit-n-kaboodle. (You may use another term … that’s just me.) The subtleties of treatment change with level of certification and protocols, but the call runs remarkably the same.

Some medics is Tulsa, OK decided that we run this call far to often and they got the bright idea to see if they could change that dynamic. Today in high school classrooms around Tulsa EMT’s and Paramedics are taking their kits and prams into the classrooms to talk to teenagers about just what it’s really like to be laying on that pram after an alcohol or drug use mishap.

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