A Guest Post by Sean Fontaine
I love posting articles controversial enough to warrant a disclaimer. Today I have the pleasure of bringing you another post by guest author Sean Fontaine. Sean is a graduate of Regis University and a Firefighter / Paramedic for The South Metro Fire Rescue Authority. He lives in Denver, Colorado with his lovely wife Oz and their two sons Jonas and Axel.
Today, Sean throws down the gauntlet on an issue that must be addressed by every emergency caregiver; the delicate balance between delivering objective, impartial medical care and the urge to interject our emotions into the often emotional drama that is emergency medicine. Can you make real emotional connections in the process of administering medical care, or does the emotional aspect of the job directly impact the effectiveness of your care? Some of us may address this dilemma only in our own private thoughts. Others may wish to publicly declare their position. To that end, here’s Sean…
Let me preface this post with the explanation that this topic comes straight from my discussions with paramedic school students and co-workers and the differing/agreeing viewpoints that resulted from those discussions. These are my opinions (not Steve’s) and I know full well that there are many of you out there that will disagree and some that will think I’m an insensitive ass. So be it, we’re here to listen to different viewpoints and think through them for ourselves, deciding in the process what our own thoughts truly are on a given subject.
The Argument: Your level of objectivity effects the quality of your patient care.
I contend that when we emotionally care about our patients we become subjective caregivers and as such render subjective care, transitioning to reactive rather than proactive medicine.
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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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Since we’ve been talking about the fill the boot campaign the annual MDA telethon, why not use our “what is” series to take a closer look at the group of diseases we commonly refer to as muscular dystrophy.
While most EMS caregivers have a general idea of what to expect in a muscular dystrophy presentation, few of us are as knowledgeable as we should be about what muscular dystrophy is and what it does to the body. Let’s take a closer look.
While we tead to refer to muscular dystrophy as a single defined disease process, it is actually a group of disease that share some common characteristics. Add to that the fact that all of these diseases are degenerative in nature and you can imagine how remarkably different these patients can be.
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Physical restraint techniques and procedures are a subject of debate and controversy in EMS. Few agencies have taken the time and energy to research and develop a comprehensive restraint guideline for field providers to follow.
When violent or aggressive patients show up (and they always do) EMT’s are left to fend for themselves. In these situations we take on a great deal of risk, both personal and legal, to bring the patient safely to the hospital.
I’ve had my share of both good and bad take-downs. When things go well the call transitions smoothly from the street to the hospital. The patient stays protected, the prehospital personnel stay safe and everyone goes back in service happy.
When things go badly people get hurt, patient care gets compromised and everyone ends up writing a lot of paperwork. In the worst cases you may end up sitting across from your patient in a courtroom explaining why you made the decisions that you made.
Here are some tips to help make your next patient restraint scenario go smoothly. Follow these guidelines and you’ll reduce the possibility of ever having to explain your actions. If you do end up needing to justify your decisions, you can take comfort in the fact that these gudeliness give you a rock solid foundation of compassionate, patient centered care.
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A Guest Post By: Jimmy Futrelle
The EMT Spot would like to welcome Jimmy Futrelle to our guest post roster. Jimmy s a Paramedic hailing from Scurry County Texas. Jimmy has been 
responding on calls long enough to remember the Lifepack 5 and using D50 as a diagnostic tool. His unique background working for private and public EMS as well as for local law enforcement makes him uniquely qualified to teach on the subject of sexual assault.
This detailed guide to responding to these challenging calls is well worth reading. I sincerely thank him for this contribution.
Responding To Sexual Assault
Introduction
Sexual assault is possibly the most devastating form of assault perpetrated on another human being. The legal definition of sexual assault is “any genital, anal or oral penetration by a part of the accused’s body or by an object, using force or without the victim’s consent.”
The U.S. Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey reports that over 500,000 women and approximately 49,000 men report being sexually assaulted each year. It is estimated that 1 in 5 women will victims of rape by the time they are 21 years of age. 61% of reported rape victims are less than 18 years old. 1 in 7 women will be raped by their partners. Only 16% of rapes are ever reported to the police.
Let us not confuse sexual assault with sexual abuse. Sexual abuse is repeated instances of sexual assault occurring over a period of time, generally by a person familiar to the victim. Whereas this crime is no less devastating, we are going to focus on the act of sexual assault.
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